CHERUB: Origins
by wordsmithdhampir
Summary: After tragically losing his father, Alfie Kitchens didn't know what was going to happen next. He was alone, in a children's home with people he didn't know - life seemed pretty dim. Well, that was until he was recruited by CHERUB. (Book I - Swan Series)
1. PE

**1\. PE**

 _25th of September 2014_

Alfie Kitchens really despised PE and had done so since as far as he could remember. It was a chilly, cold September afternoon and himself and the rest of the male Year Seven students of the Abernathy Community College were freezing cold. Their kit, mainly consisting of a blue polo shirt and shorts, left them huddling together for warmth on the corner of a muddy field whilst their overly enthusiastic teacher explained the ins and outs of football.

"You'll be sorted into two different groups where you'll each play each other," she explained, cheerfully, dressed up warm in a thick coat and jogging bottoms. "The losing team will of course have the honour of clearing up all the equipment afterwards. Any questions?"

Alfie raised his hand. "Is there a chance you could put me on a decent team then?"

The teacher narrowed her eyes as a few of Alfie's friends snickered. "You'll be on whatever team I place you on Kitchens," she snapped, clearly not amused. "If you have a problem with that you can take it up with the headmaster in detention. Now get going, I want you to do a three lap warm up while I sort out the groups."

"She's such a miserable cow," Alfie grumbled to three of his friends as they reluctantly began to make their way around the outskirts of the field. The soggy mud made a disgusting _squelching_ sound whenever their football boots hit the ground. He narrowed his eyes at the passing athletic students who raced by with ease. "You would think she would cut us some slack seeing as it's the last lesson."

Gavin Kellum, a tall and lanky built boy with short blond hair and a known target for bullies, snorted with a mixture of laughter and disbelief. "The chances of Miss Pace ever cutting us some slack are the same as us on winning that football match. It's pretty nonexistent."

"Oh come on, you don't even know what the teams are yet-"started the voice of George Upchurch, who was trailing behind the rest of them. Alfie's eyes drifted over to the distant figure of Miss Pace where she was scribbling down some names onto a clipboard. Shaking a strand of black hair from his eyes, he had a horrible feeling that the teacher was purposely going to place him with the terrible kids just so he could end up cleaning up all the cones and goal posts.

"Who are you trying to kid?" Henry Dent shook his head. "She hates kids like us. She'll place all the good kids on one team and us on the other. We'll be last to the changing rooms, that's for sure."

As always Henry was unfortunately right. As soon as they sluggishly stumbled towards where Miss Pace stood looking awfully smug, after finally finishing their last lap, she read out the names of the red team. "Gavin Kellum, Alfie Kitchens, Peter Long, Mark Neal, George Upchurch, Adam Mills, Eddie Thompson, Elliot Oakes, Hank Sage and Joe Nelson – you'll be today's _red_ team.

"For God's sake," Alfie moaned. "We're so screwed."

Right at that moment, Alfie wanted to wipe that knowing smirk off of Miss Pace's face as the ten of them dragged themselves down to the left-hand side of the pitch.

A mud-drenched long hour and ten minutes later, the ten of them found themselves dragging the remaining sacks of sporting equipment towards the Physical Education office on the other side of the changing rooms. "Just line them up against the wall and then maybe, if you're quick enough, you can get changed before the bell goes off in two minutes," Miss Pace told them with crossed arms. "I expect that will teach you not to make smart remarks in the future Mr Kitchens, hmm?"

"Not really," he just shrugged. "It just proved my point that I really _really_ hate PE."

Alfie welcomed the rush of warmth from the boy's changing rooms and immediately rushed over to his school bag in the corner, eager to change out of his soggy PE kit. He shoved the kit into a plastic bag before throwing on his school trousers, a shirt, tie and blazer as the bell began to screech through the main building close by. He swung his bag over his shoulder and headed over to where an anxious looking Henry Dent stood in the corner. "You got my phone now?" he asked, nervously glancing at everyone that passed.

"Yeah," Alfie replied, reaching into the pocket of his blazer and handing the phone to the boy. "It took a while to install my dad's new game as an application because the only way to access it was through a file on his computer. There's probably a few bugs on it, too. The game is in the testing stage of development but I added some extra coding to gain the coins and levels on there."

Henry's eyes sparkled as he unlocked the new iPhone and skimmed through the home page. The iPhone 6 had only just been released and already the boy had got his rich parents to buy one for him. He clicked on the newest app on the phone and smiled when the colourful home menu of the soon-to-be released KitchenGames' app loaded up onto the screen. "And it's jail-broken as well?" he asked.

"Yep," he nodded. "It was the only way I could install the app on it. Now, you said that you would hand me a tenner when I returned the phone so gimme."

The boy looked around nervously again. "I don't have it today, I used five pounds for lunch but I can give it to you tomorrow."

Alfie sighed; he had thought that this would happen. "Okay fine," he told the boy reluctantly and Henry's smile widened. "But you better, I've made such a huge risk giving this game to you, if my dad ever found out-"

Henry raised his hands in mock surrender. "Alright, I get it-"

"What are you two pricks doing?" a voice Alfie was familiar with all too well interrupted them. Alfie turned his head to see Bobby Arias and two other Year Seven boys walking over to them, looking as though they were about to stir some trouble. Bobby was smaller than Alfie height-wise, but the boy was more heavily built and could probably snap Alfie like a twig in a fight. He had a grin on his face as he continued. "Trying to snog in private?"

"I'm just showing Henry a few things on his new phone," Alfie lied, restraining himself from rolling his eyes. "That's it."

"Really?" Bobby quirked up an eyebrow, his eyes quickly zooming in on the new expensive iPhone 6 that he would probably never get his hands on until he was at least eighteen and had a job. He held out his hand to Henry. "Let's have a look then."

Henry shook his head, shoving the phone in his pocket. "I know your game Bobby," he said. "You'll take it and won't give it back."

As expected, the boy did not take this well at all. His eyes narrowed and Alfie watched nervously as Bobby clenched his fists and took a step forwards. "I just want to take a look," he said. "Don't be such a wimp and hand it over."

"He said he doesn't want to," Alfie spoke firmly. "Just leave him alone, stop causing trouble."

This returned Bobby's attention back on him, but instead of the glare Alfie was expecting, the boy just laughed instead. "Trying to defend your boyfriend are we?" he snorted and the two other Year Seven's awkwardly chuckled along as if this was the funniest thing they've heard.

"No," Alfie replied dryly. "Trying to stand up against morons like you. Don't you have anything better to do? Corner shops to steal from?"

Bobby stepped forwards and shoved him; Alfie's back hit the wall of the changing rooms but he managed to keep his face void of any emotion. "What did you say?" the boy growled. "Wanna say that again? See where it gets you? Well?"

"Just leave us alone," Henry finally said, after gaining some confidence. "Or I'll tell a teacher."

The bully seemed reluctant at first, keeping his eyes fixated on Alfie until he and his two goons shuffled off outside the changing rooms. "Pair of freaks." the boy muttered before disappearing completely.

"Are you alright?" Henry asked, a little shakily. "Thank you for helping me."

"I'm fine," Alfie smiled, patting the other boy on the back before heading for the exit himself. "And it's no problem; just make sure you give me that tenner tomorrow."


	2. DEATH

**2\. DEATH**

Having a computer programmer and video game developer as a father definitely had its perks. Alfie had learnt his way around computing and coding at only nine-years-old and had figured out ways to access soon-to-be released games which were only in the alpha stage of development. He had made quite a few pounds by secretly downloading the games onto the phones or devices of other students. But Alfie knew that if his dad ever found out about what he'd been doing, he would be grounded for God knows how long. Yet still, he couldn't help but waste the chance of gaining some more pocket money.

Normally, he would spend it on laptop parts such as RAM, processors, new keyboards, audio boards and other necessary items so he could install them into old and crummy computers, just to see if he could. So far he had only began on a 2010 edition of a _HP Pavilion_ but needed more of the components to completely put it back together again, his luck was dwindling.

The bus ride from the Abernathy suburb on the border of London and towards the centre was too long and slow. Because of his small meeting with Henry and encounter with Bobby Arias, he had missed the first bus and now the bus he had taken was stuck in rush hour traffic, several blocks from where he actually lived. He was sat next to an elderly woman who, caught up with boredom, had decided to begin a conversation with Alfie.

"I was just coming back from visiting my son and his two children in Crawley," the woman explained cheerfully, offering Alfie a Haribo which she had fished out of her large bag placed in front of her. "I took a train from Three Bridges Station up to Croydon and decided to bus the rest of the way back to central London. Thought I could save some time, you see."

The woman scoffed at her own words. "What an obvious mistake that was."

"Traffic is always horrible at this time," Alfie shook his head, ignoring the glances all the other passengers were giving them. "You should have left earlier to avoid the rush hour."

She nodded her head in agreement. "You're absolutely right, I should've listened to my son when he told me to leave earlier but I get so lonely you see. My husband died only a year ago and I still can't get used to an empty house."

"You could get a pet," Alfie offered with a smile. "A dog or a cat makes great companions. They get you out and about as well."

She chuckled. "I'm far too old to go chasing after puppies and kittens dear, but thank-you for the suggestion. If I was younger, I might've taken you up on that. What about you?"

Alfie tilted his head to the side in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Do you have any pets?"

"Oh." he said. Alfie had begged his parents ever since he could form coherent sentences to get a dog so he could run around with it in the back garden but they always told him no. He understood now why they had never got one, what with both of them having to be caught up with work. It was only when his mum had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and had to leave her work that they had considered getting one. But by the time they found a gap within his dad's schedule to go to the local dog shelter and visit all the dogs, it was already too late.

He shook his head. "No, but I've always wanted one," he shrugged. "My dad is always too busy, he would never find a chance to feed, walk or give affection to a dog if we did get one."

It was around thirty-minutes later when finally the traffic began to calm down and Alfie reached his stop in a modern looking neighbourhood in front of a small grassy park. The elderly woman who he discovered was named Marilyn, waved at him as the bus continued its path down the road. He guessed that taking that specific bus wasn't so bad if it meant that he had met a friend, even if he might never see her again.

He took a two minute walk up the bending road before halting in front of the mid-century modern styled house which was surrounded by tall rows of neatly trimmed hedges and trees.

It had been his family home since he was two, when his parents moved from Oxford to London in order to try and start anew in a different environment. Most of the road contained the newest styles of houses; it ranged from contemporary, mid-century and then to the older houses which were mainly Tudor-styled and cottages.

But something was wrong.

When he walked up the empty driveway, instead of being greeted by the normal closed-curtain windows and locked doors, the double door was wide open. There was no sound, just the rustling of leaves and the breeze that swept through them.

His dad usually worked at the back of the house where his desk and computer allowed him to overlook the park behind the house so the fact that the door was open and he was nowhere in sight was worrying to Alfie. "Dad?" he shouted as he ran into the foyer, his voice resounding throughout the home. "Dad, where are you?"

He raced upstairs, checking his dad's and his own room but finding no sign of him. The bathroom door was open so he couldn't be in there, so he ran back downstairs. The lounge? Nothing. The dining room? The kitchen?

"Dad!" he screeched, sprinting towards the slumped figure at the corner of the kitchen. His skin was a worrying shade of pale and sweat poured down his face as he clutched his stomach in a feeble attempt to try and stop the bleeding however the crimson substance poured continuously through his fingers. A sob tore itself from his throat. "Dad...please. Come on Dad, wake up."

He didn't respond. Alfie checked his pulse, it was weak and fading.

That was when he noticed the backdoor had been swung wide open and a crash reverberated from outside, followed by someone cursing. Alfie jumped to his feet, sprinting towards the back door and into the garden where he just managed to catch a man dressed in black vaulting over the metal gate that led into the park. Whoever it was wore a balaclava and against better judgement and fuelled with anger, Alfie sprinted after him.

He shoved open the gate and stepped out onto a tiny pathway that led through a small, deserted stretch of green. Turning his head left, he spotted the man hurriedly speed walking in the direction of the woods on the other side of the park. "Hey!" he shouted. "Get back here!"

The man spun and faced him, and then started running for the trees. Alfie following shortly behind. "You bloody murderer!" Alfie howled, determined to catch up with the assailant despite the risks the man might currently pose to him. "What the hell did my dad do to you?"

Alfie's young age soon gave him the advantage, and he advanced on the man despite still being dressed in his school uniform. He lunged forwards, grabbing onto the man's shoulders in order to try and pull him over. The man grunted and shifted around, trying to pry off Alfie's grip from his shoulders with his gloved hands. They were metres away from the woods now. "It was an accident," he briefly heard the man say. "I-I didn't realise he was in the house."

"You're lying!" Alfie shouted. "You're a murderer."

Alfie tried jabbing his knee into his back but suddenly the man grabbed onto his forearms and practically threw him over his shoulder. He crumpled in a heap on the floor, the wind knocked out of him completely. "I'm sorry kid," the man shook his head, his eyes were the only thing Alfie could see. They were brown and didn't look very apologetic. "Don't follow me."

And then Alfie lost his dad's attacker to the woods.

Several police cars and an ambulance arrived at 18 Winfrey Road exactly twenty long agonising minutes after Alfie had called them. The two ambulance people rushed through the hallway and into the kitchen while the police officers closed off the perimeter as the neighbours had begun to gather round the scene. A friendly looking policewoman named PC Ellie Owens tried to hopefully comfort him when they finally managed to tug him away from his father.

Alfie could barely focus on the soothing words because his mind was racing. Who was that man? Why did they enter their house? What's going to happen now?

"It's going to be okay Alfie," the woman told him. Alfie had heard it all before from the nurses at his mum's hospital bedside and it never was okay. "Everything is going to be fine. The ambulances are treating your father as we speak."

"You're a liar," Alfie snarled. He was sat, trembling on the corner of the sofa in the lounge. "You're all liars."


	3. CONFUSION

**3\. CONFUSION**

From the moment they arrived in the A&E department of the hospital, it was a series of blurred shapes and dazed moments where Alfie tried to get his brain to contemplate what had happened.

Everything had been so normal; he had been looking forward to spending the evening playing video games and fixing up the computer and then this. He couldn't remember being shown to the relative's room until a hospital porter closed the door behind him, the same police officer from earlier, Ellie Owens, sat across from him. She was watching Alfie nervously as the boy gingerly turned the pages of a DC comic-book of _The Flash_ from November 2012, whilst not really reading its contents.

"What happens if my dad dies?" Alfie asked the police officer suddenly and the woman jumped from the unexpected burst of noise.

After getting over her initial shock, PC Owens replied sincerely. "It's not good to think that way Alfie, I know it seems hopeless right now-"

"I _know_ what's going to happen. He'll flat line while they're operating and they'll try to use that electric thingy to bring him back but it won't work. Don't try to lie to me just to protect my feelings because I know," Alfie's voice was brittle but he kept himself from crying. "I _deserve_ to know what's going to happen. You can't be allowed to give me...to give me some false sense of hope because it's not fair."

Alfie didn't like the look of sympathy Owens was giving him. "No kid your age should have to witness someone they love in that position," she said. "It's not going to be easy to get over and it will take some time before you can-"

"You're still avoiding my question," Alfie said bluntly, tears bubbling up in his eyes as the frustration began to reach its boiling point. "How would you feel if someone you love was in that state? Would you just sit there and be lied to? Would you accept it when they tell you that everything is going to be fine even when you know it's not? Or would you want to know the truth? About what happens next?"

He knew that it was unfair to take his anger out on a police officer who was only just trying to do her job and keep him calm but he was sick of all the lies. He _can_ handle the truth.

Alfie had learnt that when the nurses had told him that his mum would be alright, only to find out that she had died the very next day. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he took a deep breath before speaking again. "I just want to know what's going to happen, that's all."

It took a while for Owens to ponder on all her thoughts before she finally decided that the boy was admittedly right. "The police will arrange for you to be moved to a nearby children's home. We'll drive you back to your house to collect your things before sending you over. Perhaps we'll even ask if you can receive some counselling sessions so you can talk to people who can better help you with your thoughts."

And soon enough, he found himself being driven back to his home in a police car with no idea how to sort through the feelings he currently felt. Alfie was an orphan now. Both his parents were gone and now he was alone. It took half an hour before they were pulling up in front of the house which was now lined with blue and white striped police tape. A man, PC Harrison Reagan who had been driving the car, turned towards him and offered a small smile whilst handing him five plastic bin bags. "Are you sure you don't need me to come in with you?"

Alfie nodded, unbuckling his seatbelt and reaching for the door handle. "I'll be fine. I won't be long."

"Alright," the man sighed. "Just don't go into the kitchen, it's still a crime scene and none of the evidence can be contaminated until it's been professionally combed through by forensics."

He barely glanced at the kitchen where several forensic scientists dressed in white suits had already begun the process of picking and prodding all through the room's contents. His grey eyes were kept straight forwards all the way up the stairs and into his bedroom which was situated at the end of the landing.

Alfie tugged open all his draws and shoved his clothes into one bin bag before sealing it shut and placing it out into the hallway to be taken. Next, he grabbed all of his books – most of them mostly consisting of history and mythology which he could never live without. He placed them neatly at the bottom of the bin bag before walking over to his cupboard.

Stacked at the bottom of the cupboard was one of the 2010 models of a _HP Pavilion_ laptop, which was already half taken apart and had a small plastic bag of tools and computing components sat beside it. He emptied a large plastic container which had been previously filled up with old childhood toys and carefully placed the laptop inside. And then placing both the container and the bag on top of the books and sealing the second bin bag shut. Alfie was beginning to think that he wouldn't need the other five bin bags when he remembered something his dad might have in his bedroom.

Hurriedly rushing across the landing, he raced towards the chest of draws that were positioned next to his dad's desk and computer. He went through all the draws one by one, eyes scanning every inch of each one to check he hadn't missed anything until he pulled the final one open.

Neatly tucked beside rows of freshly ironed shirts was a small box which had the word **_MEMORY STICKS_** scribbled on top of it in permanent marker. Alfie remembered his dad explaining to him that he had backed-up all the games, software and websites he'd ever created onto individual memory sticks in case something ever happened to his computer's hardware and the original data was somehow lost. Most of the memory sticks had half-finished content on, but re-starting from halfway was better than having to repeat the painstaking coding process from the beginning.

He had a feeling that his dad wouldn't want him to just abandon all his work so he hastily placed the box of memory sticks into the third bag. His eyes immediately latched onto the framed photograph sat upright next to the PC and he had to swallow the lump in his throat as he took in its contents.

It had been a bright summer's day during their holiday in Dorset, and Alfie and his parents were stood grinning at the camera on the beach. Alfie was perched on his father's shoulders who had an arm wrapped around his wife's waist as she gazed up at their seven-year-old son.

Without wasting any more time, he grabbed the photo-frame from the desk and placed it in the bag before digging out a screwdriver and twisting it into the computer's system unit. After a few minutes, he managed to wiggle out the computer's hard-drive which had been at the bottom of the CD-ROM and hid it at the bottom of the clothes bag. Then after that, he went back into his own room and picked up the last ever birthday card his mum had written to him in German and carefully placed it into the front pocket of his backpack.

Finally, he gathered up the last of his things before tugging the bags all the way downstairs where PC Reagan was waiting to help pile all of them into the car. "Is that all you need?" he asked when he slammed the boot of the car shut. "Because you'll have to wait a couple of weeks before you can come back to the house."

"Yeah," he replied simply, avoiding meeting the policeman's eyes and getting into one of the backseats of the car. "That's it."

Reagan sighed again at the lack of response and shut the back door. Alfie watched the man walk over to the driver's side and climb in. He placed the key into the ignition and began pulling off the curb and into the road again. "You'll be going to a place called Bowden House on the north side of London. They already know who you are and what's just happened so they've arranged some counselling sessions to help you get back onto your feet. It's going to be a long ride and it's pretty late, so why don't you spend some of the time catching up on some sleep? You must feel exhausted."

Once again, Alfie merely nodded to his words and leant his head against the window. He watched the shining stars twinkle in the darkened sky.

When he was younger, his mum had often told Alfie that his grandparents, Andreas and Petra Hase were watching proudly over them and wondered whether that might be true. If it was, did that mean that his mum and dad were watching him now? The thought provided some semblance of comfort and he soon found himself drifting off to sleep.


	4. BEGINNINGS

**4\. BEGINNINGS**

It was the thin rays of sunshine peeking through the white curtains that eventually stirred Alfie awake from his rather dreamless sleep. He blinked several times to allow his eyes to adjust to the brightness of the room before taking in the foreign surroundings.

He sat upwards in his bed which was in the corner of the room and stared at the place in distaste. It looked so bland what with its white ceiling and walls that it awfully reminded him of a hospital. The square window next to his bed illuminated the only thing that wasn't painted white which was the wooden panelled floor that looked as though it had been recently placed.

The last thing he remembered was falling asleep in the police car on the way to Bowden House. This place was probably it and his suspicions were soon confirmed when the voices of children drifted in from outside. He quickly put on some black converse which had been discarded in the corner, by the bathroom, and braved the attempt of stepping outside the room and into the hallway. It trailed from a set of double doors which led outside before opening out to reveal a reception area and a cafeteria. Two women sat at the desk looking as though they were deep in some discussion whilst a man, wearing paint splattered tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt leaned over and scribbled something down on a clipboard.

He didn't know what time it was exactly but judging by all the children who dressed in school uniforms eating cereal, it was around seven or eight in the morning.

Feeling uneasy, he slowly walked forwards towards the reception desk and was instantly greeted by two bright smiles from the two women when they spotted him appearing around the corner. "Good morning, did you sleep well?" asked the woman with long and wavy strawberry blonde hair and light blue eyes.

His head was a little groggy from sleep but otherwise he felt quite refreshed save for the nagging feelings of sadness which he had tried too hard to push to the back of his mind. Alfie shrugged. "I slept okay I guess."

"Just okay?" the woman smirked knowingly. "The way I see it was that Mr Reagan could barely get you to stir when he brought you in. He ended up carrying you inside."

He shrugged again. "I'm a deep sleeper."

"I'm judging by your lack of confusion that Mr Reagan explained where you were going before you fell asleep. This is Bowden House," she explained, walking around the desk and holding out her hand for Alfie to shake. "My name is Katelyn but you can call me Kate. I'm one of the care-workers in this place."

She gestured to the other young woman who did a small wave and then the man who just nodded curtly. "That's Sarah; she's the counsellor for both here and Nebraska House on the other side of Camden. And this is Martin, one of our caretakers."

Alfie merely nodded and awkwardly stared at his shoes. He was never any good at communicating with others unless he had his friends around as some kind of confidence booster. That and the fact that all this new information made the whole situation a lot more real; he had no parents, and his home was currently being investigated as a crime scene. Alfie didn't know whether he'll actually see the place again since it's practically on the other side of London now.

"I'm sorry about your dad Alfie," Kate's voice took a sympathetic tone, which sounded like a huge contrast to her cheery voice from before. "We've arranged for you to have some counselling sessions with Sarah to help you and if there is anything wrong, do feel free to ask any of us for help, okay?"

Alfie nodded again before mumbling. "Where's my stuff?"

He tried to desperately stare at the wall behind Kate as he spoke, not being able to look at a face full of sympathy. He could already feel himself tearing up at the resurfaced topic of his father. Kate smiled again. "We've moved your things to your room upstairs while you were asleep," she explained. "I'll take you there now."

During their stroll towards the other side of the building, Kate had explained that there were a total of twenty-four children within this care home with two children to each of the twelve rooms. It was a new building, having first opened around three years ago when Nebraska House got too full for all the children. "Bowden is a lot better than Nebraska of course," she winked at Alfie. "We care about our kids, you see."

"And Nebraska doesn't?" he asked in confusion.

"It has a bad reputation that's for sure. Stealing, fighting...there's just a lot of crime committed there but of course the social services have been trying to cast a blind eye to it."

"Why?" Alfie furrowed his eyebrows. "It's their job to make sure that everything is safe for kids, isn't it?"

Kate shrugged. "It's supposed to be but they don't like spending the money to try and fix up the area. They only reluctantly agreed to the creation of Bowden House because all the locals were getting mad at the number of disruptive kids in the area. Bowden is also going to be extended later in the year as well to try and keep up with all the kids," she told him before halting at a door at the end of the hallway. "This is it, room number twelve. You have a newbie roommate as well. Harry only came to us yesterday actually, poor kid, his parents were killed in a car accident a few nights ago. You'll have something in common."

That wasn't exactly a good thing and Kate must've quickly noticed the expression on Alfie's face and apologised. "I'm so sorry; I spoke before I could think about what I was actually saying. I only meant that it would be good to have someone to confide in...I-"

"It's okay, I get what you mean." Alfie reassured her and he watched as Kate's shoulders slumped in relief. The door to Alfie's new room opened and he could already pick up a few aspects about this Harry's personality by all the posters depicting a multitude of different football players and the two pairs of Manchester United shirts hung up in the cupboard. He could also tell that this Harry Cross had just recently arrived due to the two suitcases propped up against the wall in the corner.

"Harry has certainly made himself at home." Kate commented with an amused smile but Alfie wasn't listening at this point. He had spotted his belongings which had been lined up against the other identical wooden framed bed on the opposite side of the room. Alfie had his own cupboard, chest of draws and writing desk positioned in almost the same spaces as Harry's and he was internally grateful for the four rows of shelves just above his bed.

"I wanted to take all my dad's stuff but I didn't have much time to get all of it," Alfie said sadly, opening the first bin bag full of all her clothes. "They've already marked my house as a crime scene and I won't be able to go back to it in probably weeks."

"Maybe I could put in a word for you for them to save your dad's stuff once they've finished and Martin could drive you over there to sort through it all," Kate said. "How does that sound?"

Alfie smiled gratefully at the care worker for the first time since waking up at Bowden House. "That sounds great, thanks."

"No problem," Kate smiled. "Well now I have to go and search for a few kids before they leave for school, your first counselling session with Sarah will be tomorrow afternoon at one in the office behind the reception. If you get lost, just ask one of the kids and they'll show you where I mean. Do you have any questions?"

He was about to say no and let the woman get back to work but then a question suddenly sprung to his mind and he couldn't miss the chance at asking. "What about school?" he said. "I go to Abernathy Community College in a suburb on the other side of London. How will I get there?"

Kate let out a small laugh. "You won't be going to that school anymore; it's too far away for us to let you go alone. When we got your files through we rang up the school and they agreed with the arrangement of a transfer. We've just enrolled you in the Osborn School in central Camden. They've suggested you start on Monday rather than today."

Alfie pulled a face. "Osborn School? That sounds like a place rich kids would go."

"It's a comprehensive school, meaning that everyone is treated completely equally. A few of our kids already attend so you'll be able to catch the bus with them," Kate explained a little more seriously. "Just give it a shot; you won't know what it's like until you go."

Alfie sighed. "I guess."

"Good," Kate nodded, another one of her signature smiles already stretching across her lips again. "I'll be down by reception if you need anything."

He waited until the door clicked shut behind Kate before diving onto his bed, letting out a huge exhale as he began to think up what his life was going to be like now.


	5. WELCOMING

**5\. WELCOMING**

Alfie spent the morning unpacking all his things by folding them up and half-heartedly shoving them into the chest of draws and cupboard. The backpack full of his old schoolwork, workbooks and the box of memory sticks was emptied and placed at the bottom drawer of the desk just in case he needed it later.

He opened up the front pocket of the bag and pulled out the birthday card his mum had gotten him for his ninth birthday a few months before she died. The German words of _'Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!'_ written in neat bold calligraphy above a drawing of large brown teddy bear that was wrapped in a long red scarf and surrounded by toy cars, trains and boats.

Alfie's mum had also written a few sentences of German inside which she knew only the two of them could understand. Alfie could understand basic German because his mother had taught him the language when he was younger. Kathrin Kitchen's family immigrated from Düsseldorf, Germany to Oxford, England in the late 1970s, making Alfie half-German. When he was around five or six, he often annoyed his primary school teachers by accidentally switching from English to German during Literacy lessons. It also irritated his dad when they both used to call him names but couldn't prove it because he had no idea how to spell the words they had spoken in order to translate it.

He felt himself smile at the memories before carefully placing the card upright upon the desk and moving to the next and final bin bag.

Alfie took out the old _HP Pavilion_ laptop and placed it on the end of the bed with the computing components and tools that it needed in order to work again. His hand grasped the first of the twenty-five history books titled _The Greek and Roman Myths: A Guide to the Classical Stories_ followed by _The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, Norse Mythology_ and numerous other historic books leading up from the Tudor and Elizabethan eras to modern history.

Alfie stacked his books against one another on the shelves, using a few smaller boxes to help them stand up properly and stop them from toppling over the edge and crushing him while he slept. He then hid the laptop and computing components underneath his bed, covering it up with a few clothes and his backpack to make it look like a giant pile of mess rather than a potential computer. Before he knew it, it was one o'clock in the afternoon and a worried looking Kate opened the door.

The woman relaxed once she saw Alfie led on his bed, reading one of his books. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"You didn't come down for lunch," Kate told him. "Aren't you hungry? You never had any breakfast either."

Now that Kate did mention it, he had begun to notice the ache forming in his stomach from the lack of food but still the thought of eating didn't feel very appetising. "Not really," he lied. "I'm fine at the moment."

Kate gave him a scrutinising look. "Your file says that you've always been stubborn when it came to eating. It explains why you're so skinny."

Alfie looked down at his body.

He wouldn't say he was immensely skinny but a lot of people have noted his lanky frame because his jacket and T-shirt always tended to leave a lot of gap when they hang down. But Kate was right, ever since he was as young as one, he had been fussy when it came to eating and sometimes as he had gotten older, he saw it as more of a chore. He'd much rather be coding some amazing game or finally building his first computer than wasting time eating.

It was like sleep in some ways. If humans didn't need sleep, they'd have so much time on their hands to spend it productively. "I am?" he asked, making himself sound clueless.

Unfortunately, Kate wasn't buying it. "Come on, there should be a few sandwiches and packets of crisps downstairs in the cafeteria left over from lunchtime," she put a hand on Alfie's shoulder and stirred him towards the door. "Time to eat up."

Alfie frowned.

After reluctantly gobbling down two ham sandwiches and a packet of ready salted crisps, he went back up to his room and took out the laptop, beginning to fiddle with it. So far all he had managed was obtaining a card of RAM which he took from one of his dad's old computers, a hard-drive, a processor and its cooling fan which all needed to be somehow connected to the motherboard. Without the motherboard all the other components would be useless.

He placed the components in the appropriate places anyway; Alfie would have to come up with some way to obtain a motherboard otherwise he might as well just chuck the computer out. Alfie hadn't even noticed someone had entered the room until a voice broke the silence. "Sweet," they said. "Are you fixing that?"

"Jesus Christ," Alfie jumped from where he was sitting, grasping at his heart which was now hammering in his chest. He turned round and peered at the boy with long curly blond hair and dark brown eyes, staring at him with a wide toothy grin. "What the hell?"

The boy winced, obviously realising his mistake. He wore a green and blue tie underneath his black blazer with an un-tucked shirt and muddy trousers. Alfie guessed that this was his new roommate Harry, but the boy looked quite cheery considering his parents were killed in a car crash a few nights ago.

Then again, Alfie had done his best to mask what he was truly feeling since he got here; it was a possibility that Harry was doing something similar. "Sorry," he said meekly, swinging his backpack onto his bed and joining him on the floor. "I get a little excitable sometimes; guess I should've knocked first, huh?"

"You don't need to knock, it's your bedroom too," Alfie mumbled. "Just touch me on the shoulder or something when you come in."

"Got ya," Harry nodded. "So you're Alfred."

"Call me Alfie; I'm guessing you're Harry." Alfie held out his hand which Harry shook.

"The one and only," he grinned cheekily, before turning his attention back to the computer which Alfie had begun to pack away. "So what's with that?"

"Well, I was going to try and put it back together using some newer computing components but I'm missing one of the main parts. Now that I'm here I don't think I'll ever actually get one so I'm probably just going to throw it away," Alfie told him, shutting the lip of the laptop and sliding it underneath his bed. "Don't worry about it."

"How do you even know how to put one together anyway?" Harry quirked up an eyebrow. "Not many eleven-year-olds I've met are usually much of a technician."

"My dad. Besides his other jobs, he would buy old desktop computers and laptops and then rebuild them in the garage. I would watch until he stopped and I decided I wanted to give it a go," he shrugged. "I prefer coding though – this stuff can get so annoying."

"I think you should keep it, you might find what you need in the future. Oh that reminds me," Harry got to his feet and hurried over to one of his suitcases. He unzipped it and pulled out what looked like a laptop bag. Inside it was a much newer laptop that looked as though it just been bought yesterday. "Kate told me that you're going to Osborn School. We get loads of homework so why don't we share my laptop for research and documents?"

Alfie raised an eyebrow, feeling slightly flattered that someone he had barely known for a few seconds was willingly offering to share his obviously brand new laptop. "Are you serious? I-I mean I'm grateful but wouldn't you want to keep it out of harm's way?"

Harry shrugged and grinned. "If it gets broken I can always rely on you to fix it, eh?"

"I wouldn't count of it."

He chuckled. "You'll be fine, I trust you dude. I'll be walking and catching the bus with you to school but I probably won't see you much during the day because I'm a Year Eight, so I won't be able to show you around. You'll have to ask someone to do that."

"Didn't you just start today anyway?" Alfie asked in confusion. "You probably don't know much of the school yet either."

"I'm a quick study, Alfred," he smirked. "I know all the ins and outs of that school already."

"Yeah right," and then his eyes narrowed. "And stop calling me Alfred. It's _Alfie_. Alfred makes me sound like a right pompous git."

For the rest of the evening, Alfie stuck to following Harry around. The boy already knew the schedule of the place and he was the only one whom Alfie was willing to talk to. Back in his old school, all the friends he had he'd already known from primary school and practically grew up with them. He never made any new acquaintances that had come up from other schools, which was something his teachers had tried to encourage to no prevail.

"The toilets and showers for our floor are at the end of the corridor," Harry explained as they headed down to the hall at six for dinner. "It's separated into two; girls and boys but you probably already guessed that. We have dinner every night at six during the weekdays but when it's the weekend, they serve the food later on at seven so it allows us kids' time to get home."

"That should be easy to remember." Alfie nodded.

They took the stairs down to the ground floor where the other six rooms were and continued down the hallway until it opened up and revealed the now dinner hall. There were already three kids lined up at the cafeteria carrying trays whilst the dinner ladies scooped up mixed vegetables, mashed potato and sausages topped with very watery looking gravy.

Harry grabbed two trays from the rack in the corner and handed Alfie one. They were standing behind a girl whose brown hair had been pulled up into a ponytail and was flushed in the face as if she'd been running laps recently. The girl looked to be around ten-years-old. "What have you been up to then, Ella?" Harry asked her.

"Been playing kiss chase with all the boys," snickered a kid who was standing in front of Ella and Alfie immediately took a disliking to him. He already had the feeling that he was probably one of the arrogant types that probably tried to steal sweets from corner-stores in order to look cool in front of his mates. If he had to put a name to it, the kid was probably in the _Bobby Arias_ category of idiots. "Isn't that right _Ella_?"

"Shut it Alan," Ella hissed, folding her arms and looking unimpressed. "It was just a game of tag."

Alan giggled and nudged his friend. "Didn't look like it to me. Josh saw her snogging Nathan behind the wheelie bins out front, didn't ya?"

Josh merely shrugged his shoulders as he used a spoon to pour some of the watery gravy over a mound of mash potato before sauntering off towards an empty table. Alan didn't take much liking to that response and glared at the departing figure until Alfie spoke. "Even if she was kissing someone, it's not much of your business, is it?" then he quirked up an eyebrow. "Unless of course you have a crush on her."

"Don't be stupid," he snapped but the rapidly approaching blush on his face gave him away. "You don't know nothing, you're just a newbie."

And they left him to quickly hurry off, suddenly avoiding Ella's eye contact. When he was out of earshot, Harry let out a snort of laughter. "Okay, that was great," he chuckled. "He's been acting like a little brat ever since I got here."

Alfie looked at Ella who had been giggling away with Harry and smiled. "I take it he doesn't really like any newcomers?"

"Yep," Ella squeaked gleefully. "Though it's mainly because he wants Kate all to himself."

They spent an hour downstairs where Alfie was later introduced to twins called Macie and Madie Packard who also apparently attended Osborn School in central Camden. Both of the girls still wore their school uniforms though the cuffs of their blazers were covered in a mix of dried paint. Harry explained that they were a part of the artsy bunch and that they should probably take their blazers to the laundry room to be washed before Monday.

Alfie and Harry both got back to their room at seven where Harry started rummaging through his bag for his history homework. "I bloody hate history," he mumbled in annoyance and pulled out a worksheet full of questions that requested a one-hundred-word answer each. "It's the worse subject on the planet."

Alfie frowned. "No it's not," he told him, sitting himself down next to his new friend and grabbing the worksheet from his hand. It was about the beginnings of the First World War and the first question asked for its main causes. "I can help you if you want; history is my favourite."

"Alright then _Professor Kitchens_ ," Harry snorted. "Explain to me the causes of the First World War."

He paused for a moment, racking his brain to try and remember the information that he had read from one of his books. It took him a while because it had been a few months ago since he had even read the books based on the two wars. "A _direct_ cause was mainly the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in a place called Sarajevo in June 1914 – I think," he paused again, trying to desperately grasp at stray pieces of information. "Another would be Imperialism. The amount of land and colonies Britain and France were claiming all throughout several continents only increased the rivalry with Germany who had entered the race for land a little bit too late and – _what?_ "

Harry was staring at him with an agape mouth. "What the hell was that?" he asked in disbelief. "When you said history was your favourite, I thought you were generally joking. That sounded like you read it straight from a bloody textbook."

"I never joke about history," Alfie told him seriously. "But I only know the brief beginnings of modern history so when it comes to the Second World War I'll be as clueless as you."

"First you can build computers, then you can code and now you can recite historic information from the back of your hand?" Harry shook his head. "The hell are you? Some kind of undiscovered weird secret child genius thing?"

"I'm not a genius," Alfie told him firmly. "This stuff is just easy. Do you want me to help you with the stupid homework or not?"

"Alright, alright, geez," Harry raised his hands defensively. "Let me just get my notebook so I can write all this crap down. It would be useless for you to tell me because I'll be bound to forget about all of it within seconds."


	6. COUNSELLING

**6\. COUNSELLING**

Friday swiftly ended with the beginning of Saturday and by the time Alfie realised it, it was nearing one o'clock in the afternoon.

He quickly threw the book he'd been reading on his bed, ignoring Harry's questioning look as he sprinted out into the hallway. By the time he reached the reception he was already a few minutes late for the counselling session with the Sarah woman. Gingerly, he walked around the desk and towards the door with the words _Staff Only_ written on it. Alfie knocked twice and immediately heard a voice call. "Come in!" so he opened the door and was greeted by a cosy looking office.

"Sorry," he managed to gasp out at the woman sat at the desk. "I was reading...didn't notice the time, it won't happen again-"

Sarah merely smiled at him; she was a youngish looking woman with kind blue eyes. "I'm not mad about a couple of minutes so don't you worry about that," Alfie felt a flood of relief and slumped into one of the leather armchairs. "I don't believe we properly met yesterday Alfred but-"

Alfie groaned. "Please don't call me Alfred, I hate it. Just call me Alfie."

"I take it you've never liked your full name."

"Mum always called me Alfie; it was my dad's decision to call me Alfred. I guess I started hating it whenever someone called me Alfred because I was so used to Mum calling me something else."

"So do you feel as though you've only wanted people to keep referring to you as Alfie because it reminds you of your mother? Or perhaps it's a comfort, to make you feel as though nothing's changed regarding your home life?" she asked and Alfie felt his eyebrows knit together in confusion. This was what counselling was? It seemed pretty strange.

"That doesn't really seem to matter anymore considering my home life _has_ changed now, does it? Nothing is going to be familiar again and nothing I do is going to make it familiar again," Alfie told her. "It might trick me for a while, but it won't last long."

Sarah's pencil tapped the file sat out in front of her. "And is that what is making you worried now? Or is there something else troubling you?"

"I –" he was about to say something but instead, shook his head. "No."

"Alfie I know this is going to be difficult but this is what I'm here for. To help you recover and I assure you, everything you say will remain strictly between us. It's all confidential," when Alfie chose to remain silent, Sarah continued. "Let's start simple, shall we? What emotions are you feeling?"

It took him a moment to reply before he finally said. "Guilt."

"That's it? No sadness, no grief?"

He nodded. "I feel a lot of sadness but-"

"But guilt seems to be the most prominent emotion amongst the others?" Alfie nodded and Sarah continued. "And why do you think you feel this way?"

"I...I just feel as though I could've saved Dad if I'd done things differently Thursday."

"What do you mean by that?"

"If I hadn't waited to talk to someone about something at the end of the day, I could've missed the rush hour by getting on the first bus that runs home. I could've got home earlier to ring the ambulance and catch the arsehole that killed my dad. _He_ could be alive, right now," he replied almost angrily, but not at Sarah, more so at himself. "And I wouldn't be parentless."

Sarah gave him the look that Alfie hated the most, sympathy. "Guilt is a very dangerous thing to feel in these types of situations Alfie and you can't let it get to you because I'm sure both of your parents wouldn't want that. They would want you to keep moving forwards rather than be held back by the past, wouldn't they?"

Alfie chuckled. "That sounded pretty cliché."

"It might do," Sarah smiled. "But it's true and it's something you must understand."

"I do...I think."

"Good," she said before scribbling something down. "Forgive me if I'm intruding but you said you waited behind to talk to someone about something? May I ask what?"

He paused. "You promise not to tell anyone?"

"Fingers crossed."

Alfie sighed. "My dad is, well _was_ , a games developer. Companies often paid him to help contribute to the creation of video games and he'd get a tonne of money from it. I'd seen him code so many times during my life that I began to grasp the basics. When he'd go out I'd download the alpha stage versions of the games before they were properly released, alter the coding slightly to make the levels and methods of gaining coins easier. For extra I would jail break some of the other kids phones so I could install it as an application on there for money. They'd give me around five to ten pounds for it. I was going to use the money to buy more computing parts to build a laptop."

Instead of the look of disappointment and shock on Sarah's face that he was expecting when he looked up, he was very surprised to see that she looked almost...impressed? That was odd. Wasn't a counsellor supposed to guilt-trip him into confessing or something? Not that he was complaining, of course. The expression was gone within seconds of Alfie registering it and was replaced by a simple nod, followed by more scribbling. "I see you're also very good at history by your school reports. Is that something you've always enjoyed?"

"I suppose," Alfie said. "Ever since I was a little kid I preferred learning about ancient Egypt than just sitting around and colouring like most of the other kids. Come to think of it, I was a pretty weird child – still am."

The woman chuckled. "I don't find you weird at all."

"You're an adult, but all the other kids did, even Harry looked at me strangely when I helped him with his homework yesterday."

"Well from what he told me, you did recite all the causes of the First World War almost as if you'd read it straight from a textbook," Sarah said, looking amused. "That's enough to grab anyone's attention."

"When did he tell you that?" Alfie demanded.

"He might've mentioned it this morning during his own session."

"Great," Alfie grumbled. "Now everyone probably thinks I'm a huge nerd."

"That's probably going to be it for today, I think you've made some great progress but maybe you could do with a few more sessions during the week," she stood and walked around the desk, guiding Alfie to the door. "Does Wednesday morning sound okay to you?"

Alfie nodded. "Yeah..."

"Excellent," Sarah said but then she continued. " _Have a nice day, Alfie._ "

Alfie was about to reply when he realised something and spun round to face the counsellor who had an almost knowing smile on her face. She had just spoken to Alfie in German. In amongst his confusion, he managed to splutter out, " _Have a good day too..._ " in the language before the door to the staff room closed and Alfie was left to his swirling thoughts.

~oOo~

It seemed that within a blink of an eye, the weekend was already over and he was getting ready for his first day at Osborn School which still sounded way to posh for Alfie to even attend. Nonetheless, he put on the new blazer, shirt and tie along with the trousers he'd worn to Abernathy since the ones Kate had given him didn't fit.

At around six forty-five, Alfie sat around a table with Harry, Macie, Madie and another girl called Jolie Riggins who kept giggling at everything he said. Alfie picked at a bowl of cornflakes and as soon as the clock hit seven, all five of them were out of Bowden House and heading towards the nearest bus stop which would take them to the centre of Camden. The bus stop was an ugly shade of green and covered almost entirely of graffiti which spelt out random nonsense and the occasional rude word.

Their bus was a few minutes late but they still somehow managed to get to the school in time for the eight twenty-five start. Alfie then followed Jolie to a Year Seven tutor which was on the top floor of the school building.

They climbed up the twisting staircase, just avoiding being trampled by all the elder kids who belonged to Year Ten, Eleven and the Sixth Form. The bell for the start of tutor was just ringing when they reached a science room at the end of the corridor, next to the Maths Department. Their teacher was a small plump woman with curly, mousy brown hair, blue eyes and largely rimmed glasses that made her eyes looked ten-times the size they actually were. She wore a lab coat over a freshly ironed black shirt and formal grey trousers and called herself Ms Nolan.

Within seconds of stepping into the room, Ms Nolan had zoomed in on Alfie and gave him a huge smile. "It's so good to meet you Alfred, I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time here at Osborn," the woman frantically shook his hand before moving towards her desk and grabbing a timetable from the draw, handing it over to Alfie. "Your first lesson is Maths with Mrs Andrews, lovely woman. I'm sure you'll get on well – Ms Simpson! You'll unhand Lisa right at this moment!"

"Come on," Jolie mumbled to him, grabbing his arm. "Let's go sit in the corner. She's a right nutcase."

"I think she might've broken a few bones in my hand." Alfie whimpered.

~oOo~

Maths was soon followed by Science and English before lunchtime arrived. He stepped out of the classroom and was about to head towards the cafeteria with Jolie when another girl, Eliza George – who'd been eying him up the whole lesson, stepping in front of him and smiling. She was a good-looking girl with long brown hair and brown eyes. "Are you just going to leave without saying goodbye?" she asked, almost coyly.

Alfie blinked. What was happening? "Um...I'll see you later?"

Eliza's smile widened and she rested a hand on his arm. "Why don't you spend lunch with me and my friends? We have the best spot in the courtyard."

"Uh, I don't know-"

"He doesn't want to spend time with girls like you," Jolie interrupted, with an irritated expression on her face. Alfie looked frantically between them, thoroughly confused as to what was going on. "Why don't you try and flirt with a boy you actually have a chance with?"

And with that, the girl grabbed Alfie's other arm and tugged him down the hallway.

"She was flirting? With me?" Alfie asked in disbelief. " _That_ was flirting?"

"I swear to God, boys are so oblivious sometimes," Jolie grumbled, shaking her head. "I'll see you out in the courtyard – I've already got a packed lunch so I don't need anything from the cafeteria."

He watched her walk off and then grabbed a few pound coins from his pocket and lined up at the cafeteria for pasta. Luckily his last classroom was quite close to the lunch-hall and he managed to grab first place in the line. He thanked his timetable when he walked away and looked at the rest of the lunch queue which extended to half-way out the door.

He couldn't find Harry, the twins or Jolie straight away so he wandered around the hallways for a while until something caught his eye. A middle-aged caretaker looking as though he'd rather be anywhere other than the school, was placing some cleaning supplies into a small cupboard just before the crossroads. Alfie narrowed his eyes at the contents and a small smile broke out across his face as he spotted something.

A bunch of old school laptops had been half-heartedly piled into the corner and he bet that most of them had fully functional system and audio boards that he could use for his own. But that was stealing. Was he really up for that?

 _Just don't get caught,_ a voice told him.

"Easier said than done." he mumbled but checked his watch for the time. He would have around twenty minutes to take out the system and audio boards from the laptops and seal them off so nobody would notice the difference. The hallway was clear because most of the students had decided to spend their lunchtime outside under the rare occasion of a clear and sunny sky; leaving him alone with the caretaker and his keys.

Making up his mind, he chucked his half-finished pot of pasta in the bin beside the bench before casually strolling up to the man just as he was locking the cupboard. "Eh...excuse me?" he asked.

"What do you want?" the man grumbled in annoyance. "I get to go home now so I don't want no messing around, alright kid?"

Alfie pulled a face. "I just wanted to ask where the toilets were. I'm new, you see."

The man raised an eyebrow, sceptically. "That's it?"

"Is there supposed to be something else?" he asked the suspicious man. Obviously he had been tricked quite a few times within his time working at Osborn School.

"No...I guess not," he said with a roll of his eyes before turning down a hallway and gesturing for Alfie to follow. "Well? Come on lad...it's this way."

"Right," Alfie nodded and followed him down the hallway, keeping his eyes on the set of keys which were hanging from a loop on his belt. He nudged closer, managing to just swipe them away as he turned back towards him and pointed to the set of double doors near the main reception. Alfie quickly hid the keys in his pocket and nodded. "Thanks."

The caretaker mumbled something that sounded like 'dumb kids' but Alfie couldn't really hear properly. The man just pulled himself to the reception and started writing his name down on the sign-out list before swiping a card so the doors would let him walk out of the premises. He decided that he might as well go into the toilets otherwise it might look a little suspicious.

He stood there for a few minutes and then headed back down the hallway to the storage cupboard where the caretaker had deposited the cleaning items. Double checking that the hallway was still clear from any students or teachers, he placed the key into the door, stepped inside and locked it behind him.

Luckily for Alfie, there were a few tools left over from the DT Department he could use to open up one of the laptops and take what he needed before closing it up again before the bell went for fourth period. He wrapped the system board in the plastic bag that used to contain his PE Kit and tucked it into his school bag, leaning out the door again. Making sure to purposely leave the keys in the lock of the door, he raced towards the courtyard where he spotted Harry, Macie, Madie and Jolie perched on one of the walls, laughing about something.

His heart hammering in his chest, he stumbled towards them and joined them on the wall, nervously glancing around. "What took you so long?" Jolie asked, curiously.

"Long queue." Alfie lied.

"Really?" Harry asked, sounding as though he didn't believe him. "Looks like you just ran a marathon or something, mate."

"And where's your food, anyway?" Jolie added.

"I took a brief tour around the school," Alfie told them, trying to keep his expression clear. "I don't want to get lost like I did for second period when Jolie wasn't in my class. I ate my pasta during the way."

They still seemed unconvinced, but thankfully, dropped the issue.


	7. TROUBLE

**7\. TROUBLE**

It was half-four in the evening when there was a knock on their bedroom door. Harry had just been helping Alfie with his maths homework, a past exam paper that had a few complicated questions that Alfie didn't quite understand when Alan, the kid from the cafeteria, walking in smirking. "What do you want?" Harry asked.

The boy merely snickered and looked at Alfie. "Kate wants to see you," he said. "Apparently you're in trouble."

Alfie ran all the possibilities through his head. How could Kate know about the system board he stole from the storage cupboard? Maybe someone had spotted him after all. But what happens now? He felt himself trying to battle these pestering thoughts as he knocked on the same office he had his counselling sessions in on Saturday. Alfie recognised Kate's voice and two others which revealed themselves to be Sarah and Martin. They were in some kind of deep discussion which immediately stopped when they noticed Alfie's presence.

Kate gestured to the chair in front of the desk, her expression suddenly firm. "Take a seat Alfred," and he reluctantly sat in the chair. "I've just got a call from Osborn School who claims that you've been helping yourself to their storage cupboards and don't try to lie; they have the CCTV footage of you swiping that caretaker's keys and taking apart one of their laptops. What do you have to say?"

"I'm sorry," Alfie looked meekly down at his shoes. "I only wanted the motherboard so I could-"

"The mother – _what?_ " Kate asked sceptically whilst Martin and Sarah watched him. Though Martin's gaze was more inquisitive, Alfie could've sworn he detected amusement in Sarah's eyes when he looked back up at them.

"The _motherboard_ ," Alfie corrected. "Also known as the system-board, it's basically the main logic board of a laptop that connects all the other internal components together-"

"Alright, spare me the IT lesson, would you?" she sighed. "Why did you even steal it in the first place?"

"Because that was the only part I needed to complete the laptop I've been working on for months now. And they weren't even using them! I heard later on that they brought in those new third generation MacBook Pros' so they're not exactly missing out, are they?"

"But that does not mean you can go around stealing laptop parts. You could've at least asked them first before assuming you could just go and help yourself," Kate rubbed her temples. "Luckily for you, the headmistress has decided to let this slide because of the difficult time you're going through but they insist you attend hour detentions every day after school for at least two weeks so you can write lines and clean up around the building. Is that clear?"

"Yes...okay but what about the system board? Don't they want it back?"

"As far as I can tell is that they were planning to chuck them out anyway which was another reason for why they let you off so easily."

~oOo~

The next day, Alfie was not looking forward to going back to school at all. When he had gotten back from Kate's office, Harry immediately swarmed him for answers and now wouldn't shut up about it. He understood that what he'd done was stupid but he didn't need reminding every thirty seconds. Even Ms Nolan, his tutor, kept giving him disapproving looks from over her laptop screen during registration and there were a few girls in the corner that kept snickering and giggling while glancing over at him. Eliza George now refused to even look in his direction. He was now officially the _freak who stole laptop parts_ and he was constantly hearing the phrase every minute of the day.

Detention consisted of scrubbing the marble floors of the lunch hall and writing ' _I should not steal'_ all over again until it gave him a headache and by the time they finally let him go, the sun had been swallowed up by angry grey clouds and was about to rain.

He felt miserable when he caught the bus and it was only then he wished immensely that he'd be returning home to his mum and dad, ready to snuggle up on the sofa and just let everything wash away. When he got back that evening, he barely glanced at Harry whom was doing homework and just collapsed on his bed. He heard Harry chuckle from the other side of the room. "Tough day?" he asked.

"I've had worse." he responded, his voice muffled by his pillow.

"It'll get better," Harry said and Alfie furrowed his eyebrows. "I promise you that."

Alfie never really got to ask what he'd meant, because sleep took him away.

~oOo~

Harry Cross – or rather, Harry Ward as he was known on CHERUB campus – sat upwards on his bed when he heard the soft knocking on the bedroom door in the middle of the night. He shot a cautious glance at his roommate who seemingly hadn't stirred from the noise and tiptoed over to the door.

Sarah Peters, a former ex-cherub and counsellor for both Bowden and Nebraska House, poked her head into the room. "Is he asleep?"

Harry nodded. "He's completely out of it," he smiled. "Poor dude is knackered after all that work cleaning up Osborn's lunch-hall. Are you ready to move him to campus?"

She pulled out a syringe from her bag and uncapped the lid, confirming Harry's question. The boy shivered sympathetically for the boy as the woman neared Alfie's bed and prodded him just to make sure the kid was most definitely asleep. Afterwards, she gently pulled back the duvet and started to push the needle into his skin. "He's really having a rough week, isn't he?" Harry shook his head.

Sarah looked over at him. "It's about to get rougher, I expect," she stood up, capped the syringe and placed in into a plastic bag to dispose of later. "You're going to have to help me carry him to the van downstairs. Martin's waiting to drive already, so we better hurry."

Despite all the recent recruitment missions Harry had participated in, he never got used to this part. There was something always unsettling of shoving an unconscious friend into the back of a van, knowing that when they woke up, they would have no idea about what had happened. Alfie would be in foreign environment wondering how on earth he had got there.

The only thing that eased his mind during all this, was the fact that he knew the place he would end up was much better than Bowden House.


	8. UNKNOWN

**8\. UNKNOWN**

When Alfie awoke, he could've sworn he was on some type of drug. His head felt groggy and it took way longer than normal to stop the room from spinning at seemingly one-hundred-miles per hour. He made himself focus on one particular spot on the ceiling before everything came to a sudden halt and he could finally look around without feeling as if he was going to throw up.

The room was way too different for him to still be in Bowden House. There was a TV for one, the only TV they had in Bowden was the small one in the lounging area which they would could use at specific times. As well as that there was a small miniature fridge, telephone and kettle. He had been covered up with duvet and it was only then he realised he wasn't wearing any clothes. "What the hell," he mumbled to himself, thoroughly confused. "Well that's just bloody weird."

His eyes scanned the room for the school uniform he'd been wearing but instead he was greeted with a set of clean clothes folded neatly on the floor and didn't think twice before scrambling over and putting them on. A strange orange T-shirt that had a weird symbol of a baby with wings sat on a globe, dark green cargo trousers and brand new boots. Underneath the logo were the words CHERUB. He was even more confused than before.

He glanced out the window and realised how high up he was. The room overlooked some kind of athletics track where some kids were stretching and running around. A few metres over, in the corner, there were more kids playing tennis on a couple of courts while a few adults in white shirts were coaching them on from the sidelines. Assuming he wasn't supposed to just wait around, he stepped out into a long corridor. The corridor was a stretched hallway with rows of doors trailing all the way down on either side.

It was deserted save for the boy who was around his own age, standing in front of the lift and waiting for it to open. The boy wore similar attire to himself but instead of an orange T-shirt, his one was grey. Alfie walked towards him. "Do you know what's happening?" he asked nervously.

The boy shrugged, "Can't talk to orange." But he gestured to the lift and pointed downwards.

The doors opened and both of them stepped into the lift, where the boy continued to point at the first floor button. "I'm supposed to go there?" he asked and the boy nodded before disappearing on the third floor, leaving Alfie on his own. Maybe this was some extremely strict boarding school but if it was, what did he do to deserve it? He had seen most of the other kids do worse things than stealing but they hadn't got shipped off to God knows where.

Was he even still in the UK? He must be, the boy he spoke to had a British accent so it had to be somewhere in the English countryside at least. Why the secrecy? Why couldn't he remember arriving here? What time was it? How long had he'd been-

The doors to the lift opened up and he stepped out into some reception area where a young woman sat alone at a desk. There was a main entrance which led into some fancy gardens where a fountain sprouted water into the air, the same winged baby sat on a globe – the central sculpture of it all. He stared at it for a while, mesmerised and still one-hundred percent clueless as to what was happening until the woman at the desk noticed him and said. "Ah Alfred, good morning."

Alfie turned to look at her. How did she know his name?"

He walked up to her with a frown. "I don't understand what's going on. Why am I here?"

The woman stood up and began walking around the desk. "Zara Asker would like to see you in her office. She'll explain everything to you there."

She led Alfie down another short corridor and knocked on the door before disappearing back to where she came from. Alfie was considering following her but then a voice from inside the room stopped him. "Come in."

So he opened the door and gingerly stepped inside a large office with a big window and a fireplace which only had dying embers within the grate. He had guessed that the person he was meeting was a woman, her name being a big giveaway. The woman smiled warmly as she shook Alfie's hand. "Good morning," she said. "My name is Zara Asker, the chairwoman here at CHERUB campus."

There was that word again. CHERUB. "Campus?" he asked dumbly, rubbing the back of his head at this new piece of information. "Was I drugged? I don't remember coming here."

Zara chuckled and nodded. "Only a small dosage, don't worry – it shouldn't have too long lasting after affects. It's a precaution we have to take in order to prevent you from discovering the location in case you say no to our offer."

Alfie was about to ask her what offer but then she continued before he found the opening. "CHERUB is a part of the British Intelligence Service where children such as yourself between the ages of ten and eighteen train to become agents. They work undercover and gather the necessary information so that in turn can be used to send them to jail."

"So the British Intelligence uses children...as spies?" he asked sceptically.

"That's correct," she nodded. "And CHERUB campus holds all the facilities in order to ensure that all our agents are fully equipped to handle different and potentially dire situations."

Alfie pondered this information carefully. "So our government use children because they can get away with things that adults normally wouldn't? Less suspicious?"

The chairwoman grinned. "Now you're getting it."

"I get _that_ part, but what I really don't get is why you would ever consider _me_ as an agent."

"You're intelligent and physically fit enough to be one, we wouldn't have brought you all the way from your children's home if we didn't think you could become one," Zara continued. "Everyone here on campus has to learn at least three languages and attend classes' everyday unless they're recruited on missions. Most of our agents have gone onto enrol in top universities, once they've retired as an agent."

"I'm not intelligent," Alfie shook his head. "And have you seen my arms? You could probably snap them like twigs."

Zara raised an eyebrow. "Who was the US President during the First World War?"

Alfie thought for a moment, he remembered reading something about the Big Four Powers drafting the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 after the war ended. The three most important politicians during this period was David Lloyd George – prime minister of Great Britain, Georges Clemenceau for France and then for America there was – "Woodrow Wilson, but that's an easy question."

"Alright then, what about the President who was in office during the Second World War and how many years did he serve?"

He racked his brain again. "Franklin D. Roosevelt, he served for almost two complete terms but he died in office. He was elected in the early 1930s I think. He was also re-elected just before America joined the Second World War. He was one of the first presidents to actually serve two terms but he died from illness in the same year the war ended in 1945 so I'd say around eleven or twelve years."

"You see?" Zara said, looking mildly impressed. "That's not a usual talent, is it?"

"I suppose, but how is being able to recite random history facts going to exactly make me a good agent?"

"It shows that you have excellent memory, something that is no doubt a valuable trait for an agent here at CHERUB," she explained. "I am also told that you are very good with computers and can already speak a foreign language. Again, these are all great aspects that make you fit in with the criteria we're looking for. All you have to do now is take an entrance exam to see if you'll do well enough to be offered a place."

"And if I am offered a place?"

"Then we'll send you back to Bowden House for a few days so it gives you time to make up your mind about whether or not you want to come here. Do you think you might be up for it?"

Alfie took a moment to think it all through. If he came to this place and became an agent, he wouldn't have to go back and live at Bowden or attend Osborn School anymore. Maybe he'll actually have a chance at a decent future after all. He nodded, and Zara smiled.

~oOo~

The first place they arrived at via a golf buggy was a traditional looking Japanese dojo. Its roof was made of sequoia logs and was surrounded by a gravel garden, with a pond that was brimming with orange fish. Alfie gaped at it. "That is one cool dojo; I don't think I've ever seen one like that before."

Zara chuckled. "This is the place where our agents come to learn their martial arts, all paid for by the Japanese."

"Really?" Alfie queried. "Why?"

"It was a thank-you gift. One of our pupils saved hundreds of lives and billions of yen when they uncovered a fraud involving medicine," the chairwoman shook her head. "But that must've happened around the year you were born. This dojo is the same age as you, if not older."

"It looks brand new."

"And we have bad-behaved CHERUBs to thank for that."

When they stepped inside, a very strict Japanese lady was going around several kids dressed in the white karate uniforms you'd always see on the television. They were twisting and sparring with one another into what looked like very painful positions.

One kid near them flipped another girl over only for her to jump back up again and resume a stance that looked like something straight out of Karate Kid. Their faces were flushed from the exertion, dripping with sweat as the Japanese woman shouted a string of instructions which would sometimes switch between broken English and Japanese. Alfie noted that if he actually passed these entry exams and became an agent, he would never try and get on that woman's bad side.

They passed through the main part of the building and into another, smaller room covered in blue matting which felt really bouncy as they walked over it. It took a couple of minutes for Alfie to notice the girl standing almost impatiently in the corner. She was dressed in a similar karate uniform as the other kids, with dark brown hair tugged into a ponytail and blue eyes that immediately zoomed in on Alfie with a scrutinising gaze that made him feel slightly uncomfortable. Almost as if the girl as inspecting her prey.

"Caitlyn this is Alfred, Alfie this is Caitlyn Rosa, one of our most talented martial artists. She's going to be the one to spar with you," Zara explained. "You'll need to take your shoes and socks off before though."

Alfie was pretty sure his face had gone as pale as a ghost at the thought of fighting someone. He wasn't lying before when he told Zara that his arms could probably be snapped like twigs. He didn't at all have any experience when it came to fighting. Caitlyn stepped onto the map, bowed and then held out her hand to which Alfie gingerly shook.

"The winner will be the first one to reach five submissions. To submit all you have to do is speak or tap on the ground. You'll be able to back out at any time."

Zara handed them both a gum shield, a further reminder that this wasn't a good sign. Alfie was tempted to back out straight away but then he somehow convinced himself to give it one try. It was the least he could do. Surely they weren't expecting everyone they recruit to be masters of martial arts, right?

"Good luck." Caitlyn smirked, evilly.

Alfie gulped. "Think I'm gonna need it."

"Both of you ready?" they nodded. "Fight."

Caitlyn immediately launched a palm towards his face which he just managed to spring away from, trying to retaliate with his own punch. He didn't have much time to be impressed at himself though because the girl was soon swirling through the air. The girl's perfectly performed roundhouse kick landed itself straight into his gut, sending him sprawling towards the mat, forcing the breath to rush out of him. As soon as his back slammed against the floor, he frantically tapped the mat. "Okay, I'm out. I withdraw!" and clutched his stomach in pain.

"You have some good reflexes." Caitlyn noted unhelpfully.

"Thanks." he wheezed in return.

~oOo~

"Don't worry; this one is just a basic intelligence test." Zara informed him as she led Alfie into an empty hall full of wooden desks. Alfie sat down at a desk directly in the middle of the room which was the only one who had an exam paper on top of it.

He knew that by tomorrow he would probably have a huge bruise on his stomach from where Caitlyn had kicked him and he much preferred having to sit an exam than to fight another person who'd probably karate chop him to pieces. "This will test you on a mixture of both mathematical and verbal skills and you'll have a total of ninety minutes to complete it," the chairwoman looked at her watch. "You can begin...now."

Alfie grabbed the biro pen from beside the paper and began scribbling down all the answers to the questions, glad that he hadn't sustained anymore injuries from the fight that would've prevented him from writing down some of the answers. The last type of exams he'd done were the Key Stage Two SATS everyone has to do at the end of Year Six. He'd gotten two 5A's for English Reading and English Grammar, Punctuation & Spelling and a 5C for Mathematics last year, landing him in the top set when it came to secondary school so most of it he managed just fine. There were a few questions that ended up tricking him, two of them were maths questions and one literacy based one. But before he knew it, his time was up.

He left the hall with more confidence when had when he left the dojo less than an hour ago. Convinced that he'd done better on the intelligence test than the martial arts one.

~oOo~

At lunchtime, he didn't pick up much to eat. He just grabbed one slice of a sandwich and a bottle of water before insisting they went onto the next task.

Unfortunately, CHERUB had also picked up the information on his eating habits and Zara demanded that he'd go back to the canteen and have a proper meal. That proper meal consisted of a bowl of spaghetti and a chocolate mousse which he had to admit was a lot better than the stuff they served at Bowden. It came pretty close to second in his imaginary top five list of the _best places to eat when he gets forced to._

He sat alone in the corner of the room because none of the other kids were supposed to talk to him. He was merely a visitor and it was not yet determined whether he would be returning to campus. Whenever he'd walk by them, their conversations would stop and then start again once he was metres away. Despite how strange it all was, he understood why. "Can't talk to orange." was all he got when he asked for the directions of something.

~oOo~

Alfie looked at Zara in confusion. "I just have to kill it? That's it?"

"That's it." she nodded in confirmation.

They were now in a small office with only a desk and a metal cage containing a squawking chicken with ruffled feathers, as if suspecting its imminent doom. Alfie stared at the chicken as it darted around the cage and shrugged. Leaning over to wrap his hands around its soft neck before quickly wringing it to prevent the creature having to suffer anymore agony than it needed.

It gave out one final squeak before it fell limp against the floor of the cage. Alfie knew one thing for sure; he was so glad he had eaten _before_ the third task because he was certain he wouldn't have been able to stomach anything after this.

The chairwoman raised an eyebrow in partial surprise. "I take it that you're not a vegetarian?"

"Nope, never was," he continued. "I don't judge people who are though. It's their choice, their body, they can do what they want – it doesn't concern me."

"That's a valid point but how on earth did you learn how to kill a chicken?"

"Dad's adoptive parents owned a small farm in Cornwall," Alfie explained. "When we visited for a holiday, my grandpa showed me how to do it. It's one of the most painless ways. Quick and easy so they don't have to suffer in agony."

It was a discussion he'd never thought he'd have.


	9. HEIGHTS

**9\. HEIGHTS**

Acrophobia; that's what Alfie had.

Just by looking at the next task sent his stomach churning horribly with the thought of having to climb up that unstable looking obstacle without any safety nets or harnesses. Most of it you barely see behind all the trees and branches but he was informed that it got even higher as it went on.

The last highest thing Alfie had braved to go on was the Blackpool Tower with his parents a few years before his mum passed away. He had stupidly let them convince him to go right to the top and after a mere glance at down below through a see-through glass floor, he had balked. His mum had to go back down the lift with him because he couldn't stop shaking.

Afterwards, they had got him to go therapy sessions with a local GP. The doctor had introduced him to several techniques on how to calm himself down if he ever came across a situation like that again but Alfie had to hide his trembling hands when Zara introduced him to the two fourteen-year-old girls wearing navy CHERUB T-shirts. Their names were April and Willow and they weren't exactly helping Alfie with his immense fear of heights as they began the wooden obstacle.

The chances of slipping were higher than normal as the season was nearing winter, meaning that the grass they stood on was soaked with frost. While climbing up the long rope ladder, his boots slipped a couple of times and he gripped the sides of the ladder as if his life depended on it, refusing to open his eyes again until the world stopped spinning.

They got to a pole which you had to slide across and for a moment, Alfie actually considered giving up and going back. Willow, who was in front of both him and April, did a demonstration first. "It's quite simple if you don't think about it too much," she explained as she dusted herself off on the other side of the pole, safe and sound. "You go next and April will follow behind you."

Alfie saw the knuckles of his hands turn deathly white by how hard he was gripping the edges of the pole as he slid across. He made the mistake of looking down and practically hugged the pole like some overgrown koala when he felt another spell of dizziness take over. When he finally made it to the other side, he slumped downwards and covered his eyes with his hands, trying to take several deep breaths in order to calm himself. A hand slapping his shoulder brought him back to reality and he jumped.

"Come on, we can't go back now so you might as well carry on," April grinned. "Unless of course, you want to spend the night up here."

That thought alone was enough to persuade him to jump over the metre gap between the two planks and climb another ladder that took them even higher. They took a walk along more planks, with April having to push him forwards whenever he trailed too far behind Willow.

"This part is around twenty metres up in total," Willow informed Alfie when they stopped at another gap between the planks. Only this time it was one and a half metres and Alfie made no effort to hide his shaking hands from the girls. "This is the second to last bit before the obstacle ends; you don't wanna balk it now, do you? In front of two girls, no less."

"All that work for nothing," April shook her head disappointedly. "And it's because you're too much of a wimp to jump. My four-year-old little sister could make that jump."

Willow nodded sadly and stared at Alfie with the kind of eyes dogs make when they want to go a walk or were asking for a treat. "It was nice knowing you, kid. But it looks like you'll be heading back to Bowden until you're eighteen."

"Wait – hang on," Alfie barked, annoyed. "I didn't even say that I wouldn't do it."

"Your face says it all, love."

"Looks like you're in urgent need of a bathroom."

Alfie growled in irritation and stepped forwards. "I'll show you..." he took a small run up, trying to ignore his screaming instincts and leapt forwards. He took a massive deep breath of relief when his feet touched the other plank and prevented himself from tumbling over. He glanced over at Willow and April, preparing to shoot his best smug _I-told-you-so_ smile at their shocked faces, only to be stopped by their grinning expressions.

April laughed and high-fived her friend. "Reverse psychology, always works."

Alfie would be lying if he said he wasn't annoyed at the two girls for that but the gratefulness overlapped it. There would've been no chance of him jumping across if they hadn't have done so he merely mumbled something incoherent and stepped onto a balcony with a hand rail so the two of them could jump over without breaking a sweat. But whilst they were doing that, Alfie's stomach somersaulted at the final part of the obstacle course – and he thought the first bit was bad.

Now, he was required to seemingly make his way down a steeply sloping plank that was so narrow he doubted his whole foot could fit on it. If you luckily made it at the end of that, there was a long rope swing that zipped over a large, unappealing looking brown pond.

He spotted Zara standing a few metres away from the pond, the expression on her face suggesting that the pond didn't smell nice either.

"You've got to be joking."

"No jokes here kid; you gotta go down that plank," April told him. "Chop-chop then, we don't have all day."

He took a hesitant step onto the plank and held out his arms on either side of him, hoping that would help him keep some semblance of balance. He kept his eyes trained forwards, instead of at the ground, as he placed his other foot in front of the other and began a slow descent towards the rope swing. For a moment it looked as though he was going to make it without any mistakes when he slipped.

His foot must've hit an icy patch of the plank because he fell with a yelp, his arms reached out just in time to hug onto the plank and keep himself from falling down to the ground. His legs dangled uselessly and he started to feel himself slipping.

"Come on you moron," shouted Willow from above him. "Lift yourself back onto the plank before you take an unwanted plunge into the pond and believe me, you do not want to swim in that water."

His muscles were screaming at him as he desperately tried to wrap his strongest arm securely around the wooden plank whilst using his other to grip onto the sides and tug himself back onto the plank again. After finally tugging himself up, he was laying flat across the plank on his stomach, pondering on whether he should just slide the rest of the way like this.

Obviously, the girls picked up on his idea and said, "Don't even think about that," April said firmly. "We'll make you re-do this whole course if you slide across."

Not liking the sound of that, Alfie reluctantly began to process of standing up on the plank again without falling over or slipping on anything. "Come on Alfie," he grumbled to himself. "It's not that hard."

His legs wobbled and shook as he stood to his full height again, using the outstretched arm method to try and get balance again. This time he made sure to look at where he was stepping, despite the fact that looking down made his head spin. Every time he felt as though the world was unusually spinning, he stopped and closed his eyes. And then finally, he reached the end of the plank and his heart soared.

"Yes!" he exclaimed happily.

"I wouldn't celebrate too early," April said, coming up beside him after almost effortlessly climbing down the plank he'd just struggled on. "You've still got the rope slide. Here, you've got to decide the exact right time to let go and jump. Jump too soon, you'll legs will break, but jump too early and you'll take a dip into a pond."

"You're not making me feel any better about this." Alfie mumbled.

"Just saying it as it is," April shrugged. "Unless you think you're too smart for my advice."

"I never said that," Alfie retorted. "I just think that if you actually want someone to do this rope slide thing, _maybe_ you should give them a little more confidence rather than doubt."

"Don't think about it," she replied. "Just do it."

And before Alfie could even think of a response do that, the girl shoved him off the platform and sent him whizzing across the pond. He screamed and held onto the swing for dear life, watching uselessly as he descended downwards. Alfie quickly thought of what the girl said, and after some speedy thinking, when he thought the best chance came – he let go.

Alfie's body flailed slightly in the air. He missed the pond, but didn't exactly reach the ground either. Instead he landed in between, and his boots sunk into the mud. He felt like retching when the horrid smell of rotting meat hit his nostrils from the pond, making him glad he hadn't ended up in there.

A few metres away, Zara smiled at him. "Nice to see that you made it."

"Barely," he grumbled, trying to pull himself out of the mud by grasping onto the harder and drier ground. All of his body ached. "I still hate heights."

~oOo~

Thankfully, the final task was something he could handle.

He had started swimming lessons at the local leisure centre from as young as five, it had been his father's fear when he was a child so he was the one to insist the lessons. By the time he was ten, he could easily swim several lengths of a pool and could even go underneath providing he had his goggles but this time he didn't.

Standing fully dressed on the edges of the pool, he eyed the location of the brick carefully. He couldn't open his eyes underwater yet without goggles so his best attempt to retrieve the brick would be to dive under and blindly make a grab for it. "All you have to do is get the brick from the bottom and swim to the other end, it's that simple," Zara told him from where she stood behind him. "Do you think you can do that?"

Alfie nodded. "I think so."

"When you're ready then."

Alfie gave himself a small run up before plunging into the water to give himself a head start to where the brick was. He swam a metre before he was directly at the top of it and then, after taking a deep breath, went underneath. It took him around thirty seconds to locate the brick at the bottom of the pool. His hands felt around uselessly over the tiles until they finally grasped around it and allowed himself to break to the surface.

He expected that the amount of time he spent underneath the water would probably give him a lower score as he began to swim back towards the edge of the pool. If he was allowed to come here, that was probably something he would try and work on; being able to see underwater can give you huge advantages. But he always had this annoying, nagging fear that his eyes would sting painfully if he ever tried to open his eyes whilst underwater.

Alfie pulled himself out of the pool and walked, dripping wet, around the outskirts and handed the chairwoman the brick.


	10. RESULTS

**10\. RESULTS**

Alfie tried to convince himself that he must've done well in some of the tests at least. He hoped that he wasn't a complete embarrassment but the more he thought about it, the more he doubted himself. The first test in the dojo was a complete failure since he quit within a mere few seconds in, that was hardly agent-worthy, was it? Second test was okay, though he'd been interrogating himself on whether he'd gotten the questions right all day since he sat the examination. He was slightly confused about the whole chicken thing so he wasn't sure whether he passed that one or not.

This had been a continued cycle of thoughts since he had re-entered the chairwoman's office. While he waited for the woman, sat in front of the desk, he couldn't stop the pestering thoughts and doubts that tightened an uncomfortable knot in his stomach from nerves.

He really did want to stay in CHERUB; the campus was amazing and far better than Bowden House ever could be despite being newly built. He liked the idea of being able to do some form of good in his life rather than just spending his ever shortening days as a teenager moping around in a care home with no actual real goals to give him some motivation. The thought was enough to tighten the knot even further; he couldn't stand the thought of that life. If only he wasn't afraid of heights, if only he could see underwater, if only he was fit enough to fight like –

The sound of the door opening and closing interrupted his thoughts and Zara walked in, sitting behind her desk with a file. Alfie looked awkwardly down at his hands. "I didn't pass, did I?"

The chairwoman raised an eyebrow. "What gave you that idea?"

"Normally when someone leaves you waiting before talking to you, it means that they're going to give you some bad news – my last headteacher used that tactic," Alfie said. "Plus I'm pretty sure I did terrible in the majority of those tasks you gave me."

"Well, you did fine in the first task," the woman quickly continued before Alfie could protest. "I'd be very surprised if you ended up taking down Caitlyn considering she's a black belt and you've never been in a real fight before. The main thing was that you realised that you had no chance of even getting a look in."

Alfie furrowed his eyebrows. "I don't understand."

"Willing to get yourself seriously injured because of your pride is something that is not tolerated here at CHERUB. The fact that you accepted defeat instead of trying to continue an otherwise, what-would-be, a hopeless fight proves that you have enough sense to not think that way. So in turn, you passed the test," it was a confusing explanation but he understood it. "How do you think you did on the intelligence test?"

He shrugged. "The last exam I did was my Key Stage Two SATS last year so I didn't think I'd do very well on it."

"I think you doubt yourself too much, Alfie. Your verbal and mathematical scores were both above average, with the maths being lower than the verbal," she explained. "But overall, your total score was considerably high despite having such a negative mindset at the time. You should be proud."

"What about the chicken? Or the obstacle?" he asked. "I only made it through the course because they were pushing and encouraging me to."

Zara smiled. "But we didn't force you onto the obstacle, did we?" she said. "We would've understood if you missed that task out because of your fear, but you completed it anyway. Willow and April merely made sure that you wouldn't give up after getting so far in by using techniques to convince you to continue. Willingly facing your fear shows that you have a desire to succeed. Your fear of heights still needs to be worked on, but it's a start. And as for the chicken, you made your choice and killed it, so you passed."

"But what's killing a chicken supposed to accomplish? What happens if I didn't kill it?"

"You could've passed this trial in two ways, by not hesitating and killing the chicken when I said is one way. Another would be for you to say you opposed to killing and eating animals before leaving the chicken alone," she continued. "It was a test of moral courage and judgement. A way to make sure that you made up your own mind rather than let someone else do it for you."

Alfie thought for a moment. "So, I'm guessing that if I hadn't made up my mind, you would've tried to sway me towards a certain direction?"

"Yep and you would've failed if you'd listened. And lastly the swimming task, I take it that you can't open your eyes and see underwater?"

Alfie shook his head. "Not without goggles, it's always been a problem. I can swim fine but when it comes to opening my eyes, it's like some kind of mental block. It's why it took me longer to swim back to the edge because I couldn't find the brick."

"That can always be something you can work on but it did but a dampener on your score on the last task _however_ I do believe that overall you did a great job and I would happily like to offer you a place at CHERUB," Alfie stared at her with wide eyes as she continued. "You'll have a total of two days to make up your mind when we send you back to Bowden House."

~oOo~

Thankfully, Alfie was allowed to borrow some jeans and a plain T-shirt instead of the pyjamas he was brought in. He changed into them before being shut in the back of a van for what seemed like the majority of the way back to Bowden House. He was also thankful for the fact that these clothes weren't damp like the other ones from where he'd jumped into the swimming pool fully clothed. It would've been likely that he'd catch a chill considering it was the dead of night when they left.

Eventually, what seemed like a few hours, the woman driving the van dropped him off at some petrol station on the outskirts of London and ordered him a cab home. The van disappeared as soon as the cab arrived, turning left out of the station and disappearing into the darkness of night.

He guessed it was around two in the morning when the cab dropped him off just up the road from Bowden House. Alfie walked the rest of the way, getting frightened by a stray black cat that had been lingering in a nearby alleyway before finally ringing the doorbell of the home. It was Kate that answered.

She hurried down the hallway dressed in a purple dressing-gown and slippers and had a mix of relief and anger etched onto her features as she practically dragged Alfie inside. "Where the hell have you been?" Kate snapped in a firm whispered tone, locking the door. "You've been gone for almost over twenty hours. I was so close to calling the police!"

Alfie took it from that reaction that Kate wasn't the one who sent him to CHERUB so he quickly racked his brain for a quick response. There is no way in the world that Kate would believe that he was taken by a section of the British Intelligence that trained kids as spies and she didn't think that CHERUB would be too happy if he did.

"I went back to my old home..." he said. "Took a bus over, lost track of time...and missed the last bus here. I'm sorry."

He hated lying to Kate since all he'd done since Alfie had arrived here was be kind to him. He saw Kate's eyes soften slightly and hated himself. "We'll talk about this more in the morning. Get some sleep, okay?"

Alfie nodded and took a slow stroll back to his room at the end of the corridor. Without bothering to get changed, he collapsed onto his bed and fell asleep.

~oOo~

Despite going to bed so late, he was surprised to be awake so early. His head was aching slightly as he rubbed his eyes of sleep and decided to head downstairs to Kate's office. He knew he was going to be in trouble for his disappearance act yesterday so he might as well get the punishment over and done with.

Alfie had already decided that he was going to move to CHERUB campus but wasn't quite sure who he was supposed to talk to about it. If he left Bowden House, it was one less kid Kate had to deal with. But then he thought about Harry, who was snoring soundly in his bed as the first rays of sun breached through their bedroom windows. Could he leave Harry? He had been one of his best friends these past days. What would he think if he just upped and left?

But he'd have a room all to himself again _and_ he had Macie, Madie and Jolie so he won't be alone. Heck, he probably wouldn't even miss Alfie when he's gone. Even with that thought, he was still conflicted about the problem as he knocked on Kate's office door.

"Come in." said a voice that belonged to none other than Sarah. The woman who he was supposed to meet with for another counselling session yesterday before he was drugged and sent to CHERUB campus.

"Where's Kate?" he asked, stepping into the room.

"She's gone to the shop to get some more milk for our tea, we've ran out unfortunately," Sarah explained but gestured to the seat in front of her. "But you can wait for her here. She probably won't be a minute."

"Thanks." he replied before letting out a sigh.

Sarah tilted her head to the side. "Something wrong?"

"I just feel bad for disappearing like that yesterday and not being able to say anything about it. I don't want Kate to get worried, she looked really frantic last night," Alfie rubbed his eyes again. "She's done so much for me these past days and this is how I repay her..."

"Well," Sarah began. "It's partially my fault so don't take all the blame."

Alfie blinked. "What?"

"I'm guessing from your reaction that they didn't tell you that I was one of the ones who recommended you for CHERUB?"

Alfie couldn't believe it, yet it made sense. Sarah had access to all his information from the counselling sessions, she somehow knew he could speak German and actually talk to him in the language. " _You_ drugged me when I was asleep."

"I'm afraid so, I never actually like doing it but it's a precaution. I hope you're going to accept the offer though...all the kids I recommended so far ended up becoming excellent agents and I'm hoping that I can add you to the list," she explained. "Joining CHERUB was one of the best things I ever did, after my parents died in 2000, they gave and offered me some great opportunities that I would've never had gotten anywhere else."

Alfie guessed that Sarah must have been connected to CHERUB somehow if she knew of their existence and they took recommendations from her so this piece of information didn't surprise him. "I want to accept but what about Harry?"

A smile stretched itself across Sarah's lips. "Well I suppose he'll be going with you."

Alfie's mouth dropped open. "He was recruited to? I didn't see him there-"

"He's already an agent, sent here on a recruitment mission as a form of punishment," the woman continued, resting her head on her hands. "He was also the other person who recommended you to CHERUB. I don't know why they still send their agents to places where I'm at – bit of a waste of time if you ask me, I took this job as a way to pick up potential recruits after I left CHERUB."

"Wow," Alfie pondered. "Harry must be one hell of a good agent, I didn't suspect a thing."

"Yes I suppose he is when he isn't in trouble," Sarah chuckled. "So have you come up with your decision? I'm the one who's supposed to call up CHERUB when I've received your reply."

"I'm gonna go for it."

Sarah cracked a grin. "Excellent, that's a very wise choice."

"But I still don't understand one thing. Of all the people here, why me?"

"Why not you?"

Alfie paused for a moment. "I stole that computer component from that storage cupboard at Osborn. That's hardly something an agent would do."

"One kid I recommended to CHERUB was arrested before he was sent to campus and he ended up being one of their best agents so that's not really a negative aspect. It proves you have a thirst for trouble...something, I know, CHERUB values very much," she told Alfie. "Besides, you shouldn't doubt yourself. I don't want the last person I recommend to them to be held back from their potential because of themselves."

"The last person?"

"I've been working for Camden Council for too long," Sarah cracked a smile. "I think I might like a change of scene."

"I guess they'll be sad to see you go."

Sarah scoffed. "Unlikely, anyway I'll tell CHERUB your answer and they'll inform you what time they'll pick you up from here."


	11. IDENTITY

**11\. IDENTITY**

By the time Alfie had finished his talk with both Sarah and Kate; Harry had just gotten up and had gone down to breakfast so Alfie was left alone when he began packing up all his things. All his school work, books, clothes were shoved into bags by the time Harry came back with a large grin on his face and was practically celebrating.

"I'm so glad you decided to join dude, I was so scared that I was gonna be stuck in that pigsty of a school for longer," he walked over to his own cupboard and began unloading his clothes into the two suitcases. "Shortest recruitment mission ever."

"If I hadn't been offered a place CHERUB, would you have left forever and never tried to speak to me again?" Alfie asked, sitting on his bed.

Harry froze and turned to look at him. "That's the rule CHERUB has, yes. I don't often like doing it but we're not allowed to keep in contact with people we met from missions. We get suspended, chucked off CHERUB forever."

Alfie nodded in understanding. "What really happened to your parents?"

"My mum got arrested for murder when I was six-years-old and was sentenced to life in prison. My dad looked after us for four years until he died from a heart attack, I was sent to some horrible care home in Manchester until CHERUB found and recruited me." he explained.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Harry smiled. "It's all in the past but we better hurry up or we don't be done in time."

Alfie was already a quarter of a way done, so he remained sat down for a while longer and watched as Harry unzipped his suitcase and bundled a mountain of clothes inside. "Was it some kind of a coincidence that I was happened to be placed in the same room as an agent?"

"Not really, but the timings were a coincidence. I was sent here because I played a mean prank on my sister and caused some substantial damage to her room which CHERUB now has to pay for so they sentenced me to fifty-laps, two recruitment missions and everyday cleaning of the dojo when I get back. This is my last mission and I got here just a day before you...lost your dad," he continued. "Sarah oversees most of the records and files that come through here and she saw yours. She arranged for you to share a room with me so I could monitor you, all the while telling Kate that it would be good for us to talk to each other because we both lost our parents recently."

"And that we would understand each other?"

"Exactly. I'm sorry I had to lie to you but I really had no choice," Harry said. "If I'd told you and CHERUB decided that they didn't want to bring you in for the entry exams they would've flayed me alive."

"Don't worry," Alfie nodded. "I understand."

They continued packing in silence until they were picked up at ten when all the other kids were at school, and taken to CHERUB campus.

~oOo~

It was a miserable October day when Alfie walked down the hallway towards his handler's office. He wore the traditional CHERUB uniform but with a pale blue trainee T-shirt instead of the orange one that represented visitors. He stopped and knocked on the door when he reached it a few minutes later. Allison Cain had been a CHERUB agent herself, retiring at the age of eighteen and attending classes at the University of Manchester before deciding that she much preferred life on campus; accepting the job as a handler four years ago.

Allison had long, curly dark brown hair and kind brown eyes but could apparently be strict as hell when she wanted to be. Alfie gulped nervously as he took a seat in front of the woman's desk, who merely smiled.

She had been shuffling some files on the desk which Alfie guessed had his data and information on it. They discussed Alfie's timetable until he started basic training in a few weeks before Allison said, "So Alfred, have you chosen a name yet?"

He had been informed of this by Harry but hadn't given it a second thought until now. "I have to change my name completely from Alfred Steven Kitchens?"

"Not completely," Allison assured. "You can keep your first name if you want and change the surname or do it the other way around."

"And the surname can be anything?"

Allison nodded. "Providing it matches your ethnicity, yes. For example, because you have both German and English heritage, you can choose either an English or German surname as long as it's a believable and sensible one. Perhaps a celebrity you look up to?"

Alfie had a range of celebrities he looked up to but he didn't potentially want to change his surname to theirs. He was just about to say so when a thought occurred to him. "How about a fictional character? Will that be allowed?"

"Of course," Allison nodded. "Again, providing it matches your ethnicity."

This opened a whole lot of new windows that he could choose from. So many book characters, so many TV characters. He thought of his and his mum's favourite TV show that they used to watch and smiled. "I like the surname Swan," he told Allison with a sudden buzz of excitement. "How about that?"

"That's an interesting one. You're not some Twilight fan, are you?"

Alfie scoffed. "Never in a million years. I got the Swan surname from a favourite TV show of my mum's. She and I watched the first season together before she became ill, it's the surname of the protagonist."

"Well that sounds fine to me and what about your middle name? Do you want to keep that as Steven or change it into something else?"

"How does Alfie Richard Swan sound?" he asked. "Richard was my dad's middle name. I don't want to keep the name Alfred, just Alfie."

Allison nodded, jotting it down. "As long as you're sure that's what you want."

Alfie Swan smiled. "Definitely. I was just wondering about my dad's things. I don't know whether they've finished searching the house yet-"

"The money your dad earned through his work has been put into a savings account for you to access when you turn eighteen and from what we know, once they've closed off the investigation regarding his death, the house will be yours to claim," Allison explained. "When you reach of age, you'll be able to decide what happens with it, whether you want to keep it or sell it will be entirely up to you when the time comes."

"Thanks."

"You'll receive your timetable tonight at the latest. You have medical first, good-luck with that."

"Why?" Alfie furrowed his eyebrows.

Allison merely smiled.

~oOo~

After finishing up with Allison, Alfie met up with Harry who offered to show Alfie to his room in the main building. It was strange seeing his friend dressed in the CHERUB uniform with a grey T-shirt and was still taking a while to get used to. "I finished basic training when I was ten," he explained as they stood in the lift. "Haven't got a good mission yet, though."

The other grey shirt in the lift, a girl who Alfie discovered was Harry's twin, rolled her eyes. Her name was Harriet and she shared her brother's blonde hair and brown eyes. "I wonder why that is," she said. "You can hardly last two minutes without getting into some kind of trouble."

Harry frowned. "That's not true."

"Oh really?" she chuckled. "I was in your group for basic training and I've gone on two successful missions and it's all because I actually behave myself. I'm bound to be getting a navy shirt soon, just one more mission I expect."

"Well you're just a show off." Harry mumbled.

Harriet turned to Alfie and offered him a smile. "You must be Alfie," she said, holding out her hand to which he shook. "It's nice to meet you. Hopefully he won't get you into trouble."

"I should be fine," Alfie grinned. "I know what not to do."

"I can show you to your room if you want," she insisted, as the elevator doors opened and they stepped out into the hallway. "And the rest of the campus too, I'll be better at explaining things than my brother."

Alfie glanced at him. "Is that okay with you?"

Harry shrugged. "Sure," he said and grinned as he stepped back into the elevator. "Try not to bore him too much Harriet."

Harriet looked as though she was about to say something back but the elevator doors dinged shut and Harry saluted at them as his amused expression disappeared from view. Instead, she sighed and started dragging Alfie down the hallway before stopping.

"This is your room," she gestured to the door. "Do you have your key?"

Alfie quickly shuffled through the pockets of his trousers before grasping one of the keys Allison had given to him and shoved it into the lock of the door. It opened immediately and he let out a whistle of appreciation as he took in the room. It was like the same one he had woken up in before but better with the same type of double bed and thick duvet and a pile of freshly pressed CHERUB uniform along with all of Alfie's belongings were packed neatly into bags against the wall. A decent sized TV with a DVD player followed by a new computer and desk, kettle, mini-fridge and a microwave.

Connecting to the room was a bathroom, with a long towelling dressing gown draped over the door and multiple piles of different sized towels and flannels ready for the large bath that accompanied the room. There were several unopened packs and bottles of soap, shampoo, deodorant and an electric toothbrush sat up by the sink. "This is like some fancy hotel apartment," Alfie gasped. "Are you sure we're in the right room?"

Harriet laughed. "This is definitely your room; I have one of the same floor. This is your place of home for the next seven or eight years."

"I feel like I don't deserve all this..."

"We're risking our lives on missions, they're hardly going to place us in mud shacks are they?" Harriet chuckled and placed a hand on Alfie's shoulder. "Come on, there's a football match beginning on the Astroturf in a few minutes, and I wanna join in."

Alfie was stupid to worry about what this football match on the Astroturf entitled. Nobody really took the game seriously and each team was a mixture of boys and girls of all ages. Alfie joined Harriet's team and they all basically sprinted around the pitch until the sun was beginning to descend below the horizon. He had managed to get one goal in the entirety of the game and had even met a new friend. A red shirt that was his own age was accidentally sent flying towards Alfie when the ball was unexpectedly kicked towards his feet; they both went tumbling towards the ground in a heap.

The girl burst out laughing. "I've only known you for less than an hour and I'm already falling for you."

Alfie grinned, brushing sand off of his trousers. "What can I say? I'm a charm."

The girl held out her hand to which Alfie shook. "My names Grace," she told him with a kind smile once they were both off of the ground. "I'll be starting basic training with you in three weeks."

"Alfie Swan." he replied before the girl disappeared off into the building.

Harriet returned to Alfie's side a few minutes later, looking as though she just did several laps around the Astroturf. Her face red from the exertion. "I see you've met one of Caitlyn Rosa's younger siblings. I'd be careful there."

"Wait hold on, she's the sister of the girl who kicked my arse during the entrance exams?" he gaped.

"The one and only," Harriet smiled. "But don't worry too much; Grace isn't as mean as Caitlyn is."

Dinner was spent in the canteen with Harriet, Harry and three other kids from the same floor level as him called Frankie, Aaron and Scott. Alfie grabbed a plate of fish and chips but merely ate a few of the chips while the others all practically inhaled the long range of Chinese and Indian food. Frankie was halfway through her korma when she noticed Alfie's lack of eating. "Are you alright?" she asked.

"He's probably just nervous about basic training," said Scott. "After all, who can blame him?"

Alfie frowned. "How bad is basic training?"

"Oh it's terrible," Harry grinned. "Worse one-hundred days of your life."

"Don't listen to them Alfie, they're just trying to make you scared," Harriet interrupted them with a quick glare to Scott and her brother. "You'll be fine, everyone believes that you're going to pass on first go if you keep up with the fitness and you know... _eat_."

Alfie grinned meekly at her and continued to eat half of his fish before placing his knife and fork down with a triumphant smile. "See, I ate, big deal."

"It will be a big deal once medical get their hands on you, they'll sentence you to a diet to make sure you eat."

When Alfie got back to his room that evening he spotted a timetable that had been slid underneath his door and remembered he was supposed to collect it from Allison but had completely forgotten. Luckily his handler remembered otherwise he would've been late for the majority of the things on his timetable tomorrow which unfortunately started with medical.


	12. MEDICAL

**12\. MEDICAL**

The medical began with getting onto a treadmill while having sticky patches attached onto his chest that were wired to a machine, which in turn monitored his vitals as he ran for one kilometre. He was only just halfway through when his muscles began screaming at him to stop and his lungs felt like they were being deprived of oxygen. He was tiring pretty quickly when really for someone his age; this should be a walk in the park. Gradually, the treadmill began to thankfully slow and a nurse, who had been waiting in the doorway, hurried forwards and started peeling off the patches whilst the doctor took out a long strip of paper from a nearby machine and inspected it.

He stood there for about a minute before shaking his head and strolling forwards, pinching the skin on Alfie's arm with a look of contempt. "Ow!" Alfie flinched and rubbed his arm. "What the heck was that for?"

"Your body is just skin on bones!" the man announced, he had a German accent that would've made most of the things sound comical if Alfie hadn't been used to the accent with his grandparents when they used to visit his parents. "There's no muscle!"

"I have muscle," Alfie argued, pointing to his biceps. " _See_ muscle."

"You are German, are you not?"

He didn't know how this came into context with his muscles so he muttered, "Half." in reply.

The doctor ignored him and continued. "We Germans are strong, _you_ should be strong. You will not survive minutes in basic training let alone one-hundred days."

"What –"

"- After your injections I'll have you sent down to the athletics department and have you run laps. I'll also assign you a diet which you better comply with," he continued as the same nurse from before brought in a tray with what seemed like a hundred syringes, fresh out of the fridge. Alfie stared at them warily. "If I don't see any difference in two weeks, I'll arrange for your handler to dish out more punishment laps and watch you to make sure you eat, understood?"

"Yep. I got it. One-hundred percent," but he was staring at the syringes that had been moved next to where he sat. "Please don't tell me I have to have all these right now?"

The doctor rolled his eyes and grabbed the first one off of the tray. "Only seven now, another five in a few days followed by four more in a week's time. Giving you all these now would only just overburden your immune system and cause you to get sick. Your first ones will be Influenza, Cholera, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis C, Rubella and Yellow Fever."

He watched as the doctor uncapped the first one. "I only recognised at least three of those."

He went to jab the needle into Alfie's arm and he tensed. "If you strain your muscles, it's only going to make it hurt more you know..."

Alfie grinned. "So you admit that I do have muscles – OW!"

He frowned and rubbed his arm while the man merely chuckled. "I did tell you not to tense."

After being stabbed in the arm six more times, the next thing on his timetable was the dentist and that was something he was definitely not looking forward to. As a little kid, he hadn't minded going because his teeth would always be pretty decent but then they told him he would have to go into hospital to get one of his front teeth removed as it was blocking the growth of two others.

From that point forward, he always hated the dentist and those feelings hadn't changed over the space of four years. But, thankfully, after doing a thorough search of his teeth, the dental surgeon found nothing that he could pick out. "No cavities, no large amounts of plague on your teeth so I won't have to do any de-scaling," the man said, though his voice was muffled from behind the surgical mask he wore as he flicked through a clipboard full of files. "You've had an operation before?"

Alfie nodded. "Four years ago, one of my teeth was stopping two others from growing so they had to take it out."

"Looks like they did a nice job," the dental surgeon nodded his approval. "Both of your front teeth have grown in nicely, you would hardly notice there's been any alterations at all if there wasn't that tiny scar where they stitched you back up at the top of your mouth."

He let out a sigh of relief and the surgeon smiled. "Not a great fan of dentists, I take it?"

"Never trusted them again after they sent me to the hospital. Scared senseless at every other appointment since then."

~oOo~

For most of the days he was sent down to the athletics department on the orders of the doctor and was instructed to run around fifteen laps of a four-hundred metre track and in total, estimated around six kilometres. A woman named Meryl Spencer watched everyone as they ran, while occasionally dishing out an extra lap or two to the people who didn't do as well as they should. The first day, he decided to pace himself around eight of the laps before sprinting the rest of the way which equalled to around 2.8 kilometres of proper, fast running.

The next few days he did the same, gradually increasing the amount of laps he ran until by the end of the week it was 4.8 kilometres in total. It had been a horrible day when he reached that target; an icy mist had surrounded most of the campus so when you ran you could only see past a few metres ahead of you. He had almost ran into a grey shirt who was doing punishment laps because the visibility was so poor. And then finally, when he finally completed the final lap, Alfie couldn't help feel slightly triumphant as he walked into the canteen at dinner time.

He had promised himself that he would also try and comply with the diet the doctor had given him and helped himself to a generous slice of lasagne and a small piece of chocolate cake. Alfie spotted Harry and Frankie at the corner of the canteen and sat down next to them.

"This is my only break until I'm back on cleaning duty," Harry complained miserably. "Then when I get back I have to do all the homework that Mr Brennan and Allison gave to me, followed by more lessons in the morning."

"Bet you wish that the whole prank you pulled on Harriet never happened now." Frankie laughed.

Alfie furrowed his eyebrows. "I thought you said you tried to make up with your sister?"

"I tried," he insisted. "But when she wasn't having any of it, I got angry and decided to flood out her bedroom by turning on all the taps when she was away."

"What a way to take out your anger." Alfie grinned.

"I know," Harry laughed. "I mean I love my sister and that but she can be so stuck up sometimes, honestly."

~oOo~

Exactly two weeks from his last trip to medical, he stood barefoot on a scale watching as the arrow turned to seventy-six pounds. The doctor nodded in approval and jotted down the information onto one of Alfie's medical files. "Four more pounds and you'll weigh the healthy average of someone your age," he said as Alfie stepped off of the scales and put his boots back on. "Keep up with the diet and the running and you'll be ready for basic training in no time."

He headed down to the athletics track and changed his trousers to shorts in the changing rooms and spotted Grace Rosa walking out towards the tracks. Her dark brown hair was swept up into a neat ponytail and she was in her CHERUB uniform with the red T-shirt.

"Nice seeing you again," she smiled, falling into step beside Alfie. Grace was so like her sister, it was a wonder Alfie hadn't figured out they were related before Harriet had even told him. They had the same shade of hair colour, intelligent blue eyes and a similar facial structure. The only main difference was that Grace was tanned, whereas Caitlyn had a paler skin colour and was a lot meaner looking. "You running fifteen to?"

"Yeah." Alfie nodded, sticking his hands in the pockets of his shorts.

"Mind if I run with you?" Grace asked. "I usually have a running buddy but the person who I run with is on a mission."

"Sure," Alfie shrugged. "I don't mind."

They began their run by pacing the first five four-hundred metre laps around the field. It was a slightly clearer day today, only a fine drizzle of rain that was said to be cleared up by four in the afternoon and the ground wasn't particularly muddy. They mainly ran in silence and it was on their fourth lap of the field that Grace finally spoke. "Are you nervous about basic training?"

"Crapping myself."

Grace laughed. "So am I. This will be my third time trying."

"You've done it before?"

"Yeah and it's never easy. First time I broke my arm by falling awkwardly on the obstacle course, the second time I broke my leg," Grace laughed. "I just have bad luck in general but I really think I'm gonna make it this time. I don't want to be a stupid red shirt anymore...just one more week to go."

This information didn't exactly discourage Alfie's nerves about the whole basic training thing. In fact, the remainder that he only had one week left until he's completely isolated from his friends just made his nerves churn horribly in his stomach. So he tried to focus on something else. "How long have you been at CHERUB?" he asked.

"Four years," Grace told him. "We came here when my sister was ten and caught the eye of an agent on a recruitment mission."

"We?"

"We have two younger siblings; Maddie, who's nine and Jackson who's six. They live in the junior block with me and they won't start their basic training for a whole while yet but if I end up stuck with them because I can't pass, it'll be so embarrassing."

"I'm sure you will pass," Alfie said with a smile. "You'll make a great agent."

"Thanks." Grace squeaked and if Alfie had been paying attention, he would've noticed the blush that crept on to the girl's cheeks.

Half an hour later they were on their final lap and the finish line was in their sights. Just as the forecast had predicted, the swarming clouds above were slowly dispersing and the first rays of sunshine peeked itself through. Alfie stared up at it and welcomed the warm rays with open arms.

He then looked at Grace with a smirk. "Race you to the finish line?"

Grace returned the look with an equal amount of mischief. "You're on, Swan. Ready...set – GO!"

Alfie sprinted the rest of the lap as fast as he could, not daring to look up to see where Grace was. They overtook several other red and grey shirts that was in their path and pelted it towards the end without looking back. As soon as he reached the finish line, he looked up and saw Grace just a few centimetres in front of him, throwing her arms up into the air with glee. "YES!" she exclaimed. "Beat that! I won!"

"Just," Alfie laughed, leaning over to catch his breath. "But it was fair play, so congrats I guess."

"Thanks." Grace smiled before walking back over to the changing rooms, chanting _I win, I win_ so loudly that Meryl ended up shouting at her to be quiet.

~oOo~

When Alfie got back to his room, he showered, changed into clean CHERUB uniform and switched on the TV where the news began to play as he sunk into the thick duvet of his messy bed. He had a few hours to kill before dinner began downstairs in the canteen so he decided he'd kick back and relax for a while.

His fitness had improved a lot within the last few weeks, with all the running and dieting, he was beginning to see some of the effects. His clothes no longer hung off him as much and he could run up to five kilometres without tiring and he couldn't help but like this change. He still had trouble complying with the diet sometimes when he came back from a run, he felt as though he couldn't be asked to go down to the canteen but he always managed to force himself.

His body would thank him later that was sure.

Half an hour into watching some random David Attenborough documentary about the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean, the door opened and Harry strolled in looking thoroughly drained. He dropped himself on Alfie's bed and let out a huge sigh of exasperation.

"Please do come in." Alfie said sarcastically.

"Not another word dude," came his muffled reply. "I want to savour this moment of relaxation before I have to go and clean the dojo again."

"Tough life, huh?"

"Shhh," he looked upwards and scowled irritably at the television. "Turn that David Attenborough crap off, would you?"

"No," Alfie said defiantly. "It's interesting and I was watching it before you came dancing into my room and helping yourself. If you wanna stay here, you're gonna have to put up with my old pal David."

"Moron." came the response that he guessed Harry was trying to say under his breath so Alfie wouldn't hear.

Alfie grabbed the nearest pillow and launched it at the boy's head. "What was that?"

"Ow," Harry moaned, rubbing the back of his head. "The heck was that for?"

Alfie grinned. "Calling me a moron."

"I was merely saying that you should put on some football instead," Harry rolled to his feet and headed towards the door again. "Manchester United are playing but of course I have to miss it because of this stupid dojo cleaning thing."

"Well if you hadn't been a dickhead and flooded out your sister's room you could be watching it now."

Harry thought for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. "Still worth the look on her face."


	13. DISTURBANCE

**13\. DISTURBANCE**

He had been having a strange dream about Zara making Harry and Harriet settle their differences by forcing them to marry each other in the campus chapel whilst Grace and Allison stood on the sidelines and threw confetti everywhere in celebration. Alfie was a more than weirded out by this when he woke to the sound of shouting from outside.

Alfie sat upwards in his bed and rubbed his eyes and squinted at the clock beside his bed that read 2:00 in the morning. Who the hell was up this early? And what the heck was that dream?

Alfie pulled himself from his bed and strolled towards the door, peeking out into the hallway. Apparently he wasn't the only one who had been disturbed by this outbreak of noise as at least five other kids had their heads poked out from behind their own doors. Their handler, Allison Cain, wrapped up in a dressing gown was shouting at two kids who were stood meekly covered in glitter and flour.

"What the hell are you two playing at? It's two o'clock in the morning!" she shouted in anger at the two guilty looking fourteen-year-olds. "I'm not surprised that this is the kind of thing you would do George, but you...?"

"He pranked me!" the girl with no name shouted. "I just retaliated."

"Why are you even on this floor anyway? You know what, don't answer that question...I'm bringing you to my office so I can call your handler," she snapped, grasping the two by the shoulder and guiding them towards the end of the hallway. "She'll be the one to decide your punishments for this...everyone else, go back to bed now!"

"This is your entire stupid fault, you moron." growled the girl when they passed by.

"Me?" the boy who Alfie learnt was named George said with a mixture of disbelief. "I'm not the one who decided to use _glitter_ as self-defence –"

Alfie shut the door to his bedroom again and flopped himself down on his bed, trying to desperately stop himself from grinning.

It was around seven in the morning when Harriet – Harry's twin sister, who also had a thing for walking into his room unannounced – strolled into his room looking awfully happy and placing herself next to where Alfie was reading a book on his bed. The TV was playing the typical morning BBC News, so Harriet grabbed the remote and began hopping through all the channels until it reached some _Eastenders_ omnibus where Ronnie and Roxy Mitchell discussed their love lives over a cup of tea.

Alfie turned and looked at Harriet. "Really?" he asked.

"You watch boring news channels, I watch classical soap operas. Don't judge me Swan."

"Completely unrealistic soap operas, you mean."

Harriet looked offended. "It is realistic, thank-you very much."

Alfie rolled his eyes. "It's either the Queen Victoria pub catches fire at least three times a month, there's an explosion in the town square or someone gets murdered. The most interesting thing that happened in my neighbourhood was that next door's dog got loose and a bunch of us had to team up to catch it."

"Well, you must have lived in a boring neighbourhood then."

"No," he shook his head. "I just lived in a realistic one."

"There has to be drama in some TV programmes otherwise people just won't pay attention to them because they'll be so bland!" Harriet commented with a huff of annoyance. "And to think I was going to give you a tip on basic training."

Alfie eyed her up suspiciously. "You're not allowed to do that, are you?"

"I'm not allowed to give you a drastic amount of information but I can accidentally slip a little info without them knowing," she smirked. "But since you've offended my favourite TV show, I think I might reconsider. What do you think? Perhaps, if you do want this piece of information, you can come up with a nice compliment."

"Oh for God's sake," Alfie huffed. "You're blackmailing me now?"

Harriet just shrugged. "It's fine with me if you don't want the information. You'll just probably end up doing terribly in your basic training in...how many days is it now? Six?"

"Alright fine. Eastenders is such a wonderful and amazingly original creation with an absolute tonne of realistic expectations..."

"I sense sarcasm."

"Nope, no sarcasm here. It was all completely true from the bottom of my heart...now spill."

The girl sat up and smiled. "Okay – a deal is a deal, I guess –"

"That wasn't a deal, that was blackmail –"

"Do you want to hear what I have to say or are you going to keep complaining? Exactly, so let me speak boy," her smile stretched into a grin. "The morning before the beginning of basic training, the instructors send out a group of CHERUBs to try and sabotage all the trainees' things so they end up late for their first day. Things such as taking away your alarm and hiding all your clothes so you end up both waking late and spending more time because you don't know where your gear is."

"How am I supposed to stop something like that from happening?"

Harriet shrugged. "You're clever, I'm sure you'll come up with something. Maybe put something near the door so when it opens it makes a loud enough noise to wake you up and if that doesn't work, hide all your stuff away so they won't find it. Anyway...I have a large gap in my timetable today, no lessons and stuff – so what do you wanna do?"

"I don't know," he shrugged. "Lay around?"

"No way," Harriet said firmly. "I've been doing so much work recently I want to do something fun. How about swimming? Or maybe some football...you really need some practice. Yeah, let's do that."

"Hold on. Don't I get a say in this?"

"Nope," Harriet grabbed Alfie's book, put in a bookmark and dumped it on the side before grabbing a T-shirt and shorts from his chest of draws and throwing it at him. "Get ya arse ready and we'll head downstairs."

~oOo~

Football practise consisted of Harriet being in goal whilst Alfie failed miserably to kick it into the back of the net. Harriet had insisted that Alfie wasn't kicking the ball right and told him to kick the ball with the side of his foot rather than the front and immediately improvement could be seen. "Wow," Alfie said when the ball tumbled into the bottom-right corner. "That was so much better."

There was a fine drizzle and chilly mist around campus today but nothing seemed to deter Harriet's happy mood. She looked vaguely surprised herself at Alfie's sudden goal. "I must be one awesome football coach."

Alfie smirked. "Dummkopf."

Harriet peered at him. "What was that?"

"Nothing," he said quickly, getting the ball back from the other side of the Astroturf. "Absolutely nothing."

"I'm going to look up that word and if I don't like it's meaning, be prepared to pay." Harriet told him seriously with a hint of amusement in her tone.

Alfie scoffed. "Yeah good luck with that, you don't even know how to spell it."

They continued on for one more hour, this time occasionally swapping positions but instead of Harriet trying to aim for the goal, Alfie's head was the target. He often found himself having to dramatically dive out of the way to avoid getting slammed in the head by the flying projectile and when it as his turn, he managed to score a few more goals than normal.

Alfie had just been around to score his fifth goal when a voice from none other than Harry Ward called out to him. "Hey Alfie! Allison has been looking for you," he said. "Says it's about something important."

"Alright, I'll go over to her office now, just lemme get my jumper." he replied and wandered over to the side of the pitch to pick it up from beside the fence.

"I kind of guessed that you might've been with _Miss Bad Influence_ over here."

Harriet laughed. "Miss Bad Influence? That's all you got?"

Harry smirked. "I can think of multiple more names to call you but I'm afraid they might be too PG for your tiny mind to comprehend."

The girl's lips twisted into a horrible sneer and she growled. "You're always so full of shit Harry," she snapped, storming towards him. "Why can't you just be nice for once, hey? Maybe you might have more friends."

"I tried being nice to you," he replied coldly. "But you were such a bitch about it –"

"Whoa, come on." Alfie stepped in between them and held up his hands when the pair of them got dangerously close to hitting each other. Alfie didn't know the full story behind the feud between them, but he knew that both of them seriously needed to sit down with someone to discuss the obvious issues that they have or one of them would end up seriously hurt. He ended up remembering the dream he had about Zara making Harriet and Harry marry each other to resolve the problem and thought that probably wasn't the way to do things.

"Just walk away from each other. If both of you get into a fight, there's probably going to be some serious consequences. Harry, you already have a punishment cleaning the dojo so don't go asking for another."

Thankfully Harry seemed to come to his senses first and huffed, turning his back around and heading to the edges of the pitch where the exit was. Behind Alfie, Harriet seemed to deflate. "You're right...I'm sorry, but sometimes he just really irritates me –"

"To be fair, he did start it. It was kinda stupid to make a comment like that," Alfie raised an eyebrow. " _How_ big was this fall out between you and him?"

Harriet waved her hand dismissively. "I'll tell you later when you come back from Allison's office. She doesn't like to be kept waiting so you better hurry up. I'll see you later –" she waved him off as Alfie sprinted out of the Astroturf and back towards the building where the main building was. In the distance he could just see Harriet join one of the matches that had been playing over on the other pitch and was glad that the girl hadn't ended up doing something she would really regret later.

~oOo~

The door to Allison's office was already open when he arrived so he nervously peeked around the corner and saw the woman scribbling something down on a document where she sat. Alfie coughed awkwardly to grab his handler's attention. "Harry said you were looking for me?"

"Ah, yes I was," Allison smiled and gestured to the chair before her desk. "Take a seat Alfie and close the door behind you."

Alfie quickly ran through all the explanations as to why he could possibly be there in his mind. Was he being kicked out? Had he done something wrong? Not that he knew of, anyway. Maybe they changed their minds and he wasn't fit to be at CHERUB after all. He knew he was probably overreacting with these questions but they always seemed to plague his mind in these situations.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked nervously.

Instead of the stern look he was expecting, Allison let out a laugh. "No of course you haven't, I just wanted to inform you of something, about your father."

This immediately perked Alfie's interests. "Did they find anything?" he asked, desperately. "Have they found the person that did it? I gave them the best description I could get."

Allison shook her head and looked at Alfie sympathetically. "The others didn't want me to tell you this until after your basic training because it might put you off but I believe you had the right to know as soon as we got the message," she sighed and continued. "The police have decided that they're stopping their search of the house and based on some terrible CCTV footage from a neighbour, and your statement, have concluded that your dad was a victim of a robbery gone wrong. The suspect believed the house was empty, gone inside to steal and got the shock of his life when there was someone home after all."

Alfie felt a small flame of anger flicker inside of him. "So they grabbed the nearest kitchen knife and stabbed him."

"Seems to be what the police think," Allison confirmed, nodding sadly. "I'm so sorry Alfie, I really wish I could give you some more information on what happened but please do not let this deter you. They've found fingerprints and a few traces of DNA so there is still a chance of finding the person who did it."

"I'll try not let it get in the way," Alfie said, managing a small smile. "Thanks for telling me."


	14. PLAN

**14\. PLAN**

The days to the beginning of his basic training were ticking away and Alfie was getting more nervous.

His friends weren't exactly making him feel any better about the looming one-hundred days, detailing all the things that could go wrong. But then again, it was better than them sugar-coating it all and Alfie getting a slap in the face of his first day when it's nothing like what he had imagined.

He was sat in Scott's room with Frankie and Harriet, who were discussing all the mishaps that they had faced whilst doing their own basic training. Alfie knew that they were only doing it to make him more anxious than he already was so he decided to ignore them and focus on what Scott was doing. He had hooked an old PS2 to his TV and was playing _Star Wars Battlefront 2_ from 2005 with full concentration.

"Shit," he muttered when two Jedi sprung out of nowhere with two double-bladed green and blue lightsabers, causing him to force his Clone Trooper backwards to avoid an onslaught. "Stupid freaking Jedi, no wonder Anakin Skywalker turned to the bloody Dark Side."

"I don't think that's the exact reason _why_ he turned to the Dark Side." Alfie pointed out. The current level Scott was on was in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant and their latest mission was the capture of the council chamber. After killing the last of the enemy, Scott finally seized the chamber and was already being told some new orders.

' _Attention troops; double-time to the library. The Jedi are attempting to destroy the library's holobooks...stop them,'_ demanded the voice and Scott began directing his Clone Trooper up some stairs and into the library.

"Ooooo can I do this bit?" Alfie asked enthusiastically.

Scott glanced at him before turning his eyes to the screen. "Do you even know how to play? You said you haven't played this game before."

"I've been watching you use the controls this entire time, of course I know how to play," he said, snatching the controller out of his hands, shooting several of the recently appeared Jedi's who had already begun to destroy the bookcases whilst throwing a thermal detonator at three more when they used their lightsabers to deflect the shots. "See? Not bad right?"

"What the hell..." Scott gaped before eying him up suspiciously. "Are you some kind of technopath or something? Normally when I let anyone new play this game, I have to end up restarting the level several times until they can actually win."

Alfie rolled his eyes. "It's not rocket science to understand."

"Hey, can you two geeks turn that crap off now?" Frankie told them both. She and Harriet had made themselves at home on Scott's bed whilst the boys were forced to sit on the floor to play their game. "The film we're supposed to be watching starts in like two minutes, you know."

"Shove the movie," Scott said eagerly, never taking his eyes off the screen. "Alfie is going to lead me and my Empire to victory right here."

" _Your_ Empire?" Alfie scoffed. "Last time I checked you weren't the raving lunatic Darth Sidious."

Scott gestured to the screen. "Do you see that creep fighting the Jedi? Nope, it's all me and my excellent knowledge in warcraft. So, effectively, it's _my_ Empire – not his."

"To be fair on Sidious, he did just get fried by his own Force lightning and turned into a bald ugly monster because of Mace Windu," Alfie explained, completely ignoring the protests of Frankie and Harriet above them. " _And_ you wouldn't even be able to attack the Jedi Temple like this if it wasn't for his part in putting the plans into motion. There would be no Empire without him so you have no right to claim it as yours."

"Since when have you been on the side of Sheev Palpatine?"

"I'm not, I'm just saying it as it is –"

"Guys!" Harriet shouted, shaking her head in disbelief. "Have your debate over that potato-headed Emperor another time! Our film starts in one minute and if we miss the beginning of it, I'm going to end up electrocuting you both with my _own_ Force lightning."

Nobody wanted to get on Harriet's bad side so both of them reluctantly agreed and switched off the PS2 so Harriet could turn over to the channel where the movie was just beginning to play after a series of adverts. Frankie snickered when she saw the boys' slump down in relief once they realised they hadn't actually missed the beginning of the film and were safe from Harriet's scary wrath.

"You got away with it today," she giggled. "But I wouldn't be sure about the next time."

Both Scott and Alfie blanched.

The movie lasted one hour and forty-one minutes and even Alfie had to admit that he was glad that they didn't actually end up missing it. After it ended, Scott switched on the PS2 again and began playing _FIFA14_. "Can't afford it yet," Scott said miserably when Alfie asked why he didn't have _FIFA15_ or a PS3. "I'm saving up."

It was early into the evening when they all decided to finally retreat to their own rooms on the same floor. Alfie was just deciding that he was going to do some more reading when Harriet tapped him on the shoulder and got his attention.

"So, have you thought of a plan to keep all your stuff safe on the day before you start basic training?" she asked in a hushed tone that Alfie thought wasn't really necessary considering there was nobody but them in the hallway. "Because you don't have many days left until it starts."

"I know that," Alfie said. "And I thought about what you said and putting something in front of the door so that it makes a noise when someone walks in, but what can I use? And where do I even get it from as well?"

Harriet thought for a moment, and then grinned. "Leave it to me," before disappearing down the hallway and leaving Alfie with a lot of unanswered questions.

~oOo~

It was a surprisingly sunny day for late October, Alfie thought as he ran his routine fifteen four-hundred metre laps around the athletics track. Normally, he was now able to run for the majority of all the laps but the burning sun was making him slower. He figured that this was something he might face during basic training so he forced himself through most of it and walked the rest of the way.

He doused himself in an ice cold shower when he got into the changing rooms. His fitness was getting better, and the doctor now believed that he would indeed make the hundred days unless he quit or received an injury serious enough that he couldn't continue.

He changed into another pair of recently washed CHERUB uniform and headed across to the living quarters, in dire need of a small break. Alfie was just about to reach the elevator when he heard a voice call out to him. Harriet, looking as though she just ran a marathon, walked up to him holding what looked like to be a box of toy plastic building blocks and a can of silly string. "Here you are, you'll have to make do with that because that's all I could get."

"How in the heck _did_ you get this stuff?"

"Junior block," she mumbled quietly. "The kids hardly use the building blocks so they won't be missing it. I gotta go; I have a class to attend."

Alfie watched in disbelief as Harriet hurried off before stepping into the lift and heading upwards. He understood the use of the building blocks as when they rattled or fell over, they made a lot of noise but what was with the silly string? And why would they allow the younger kids to have the silly string? It practically ensured the possibility of mayhem.

Shaking his head at the still unanswered questions, the lift dinged open and he stepped out onto his floor. The only problem was that none other than Allison Cain was standing waiting for the same elevator. Her eyes immediately rested on the box of building blocks but she didn't get to see the silly string because Alfie quickly hid it behind the box.

Allison raised an eyebrow in question. "Do I even want to know?"

"Probably not." Alfie smiled awkwardly, stepping around his handler.


	15. BEGINS

_**pssst - thanks for the review bobdat, it's good to get some feedback.**_

 **15\. BEGINS**

The evening before basic training began, Alfie started setting up.

His backpack full of the equipment and standard CHERUB kit save for the number three on the T-shirt and trousers were all pressed and packed neatly. He hid the bag underneath his bed, surrounded by his books and the old _HP Pavilion_ laptop he had been fixing up as well as its computing components so that it was buried and hard to find.

His alarm was set for four am, leaving plenty of time to get changed and head down to the training compound for five am. He placed the alarm clock underneath a pillow on the other side of his bed; thankfully the device was small so it didn't make a huge, obvious lump underneath the fabric.

And finally, after bidding goodbyes to all his friends including Harry, Harriet, Frankie and Scott, he closed the door to his room and placed the box of plastic building blocks in front of it. He adjusted the box's position slightly; so that it was a definite fact it would tip over and make a lot of noise if someone were to walk in. The silly string spray Harriet had given to him was sat by his bedside and easy to grab if some older CHERUB decided to pay him a visit.

By eight am, he was already asleep.

~oOo~

Funnily enough, at God-knows what time in the morning, he was jolted awake by the sound of the box crashing forwards and spilling the building blocks all over the floor. He sprung up from his bed, placed several pillows underneath the duvet so it looked as though he was still there, grabbed the silly string spray and hid behind the half ajar door.

"Shit," someone muttered nervously from outside. "Do you think that woke him?"

"I don't know," another one spoke with the same hints of anxiety in their tone. "Did you hear anything moving in there?"

"No," the other replied. "Maybe he's a deep sleeper like the others."

"I'm going to quickly peek through and see," Alfie was thankful for the darkness that hid him from view when he spotted the edges of a silhouetted head just glance out from behind the doorway. The light from the corridor briefly highlighted the pillows' outline from underneath the duvet and Alfie heard the guy take a deep breath of relief before giggling to his friend. "See that? Kid didn't even stir. We're in the clear, Mr Hayward just said that we're supposed to ruin his backpack and take the batteries out the alarm. Nothing drastic, okay?"

"Gotcha," they said. "Let's go."

Alfie tucked himself deeper into the corner as one boy and girl in their CHERUB uniforms with grey T-shirts tiptoed into the room and started walking around his bed in search for Alfie's belongings. When they didn't find it anymore, the boy turned to the girl in confusion. "Where the hell do you think he put them?" he whispered.

"Maybe the bathroom? Check there," they both wandered into the bathroom but came out empty-handed and thoroughly puzzled. "Perhaps the kid hid em'...probably smart enough to realise that someone might sabotage his things, check under the bed."

"Or some brat tipped him of –"

"Wait a minute."

The girl stopped the boy and peered closely at the bed where the pillows were and poked it.

The boy furrowed his eyebrows. "What the hell are you doing? You're going to wake him up!"

"Luke, that isn't a person you dumbass! It's just pillows!" she whispered harshly when the realisation that she had just been fooled hit her in the face. Alfie could barely contain his laughter, how on earth did that manage to fool two grey shirts? "Those blocks were probably placed there on purpose to alert him if someone came through the door."

Luke scanned around the room frantically. "Then where is he then-"

"SURPRISE SUCKERS!" he leapt out of his hiding place, switched on the light and began to unload the entirety of the silly string can all over the two startled looking agents. They both stumbled backwards against the wall, completely covered in the multi-coloured goo which hung from all parts of their body. Once the can was empty, Alfie couldn't stop his giggles as he leant over and clutched his stomach. He was laughing so much that tears began to bubble up at the bottom of his eyes from amusement. "And the Swan strikes again!"

The boy called Luke looked furious but the girl couldn't help but see the funny side of this fiasco. Luke was just beginning to shout, "You little..." when a very confused and ticked off Allison Cain marched into the room, stopping as she caught the sights of Luke and his friend.

"What in God's name happened here?" she asked. When neither Luke nor Alfie replied; she turned and looked at the girl. "Laura?"

Laura shrugged. "We were sent to this kid's room to ruin all his belongings before he starts basic training, on orders from Mr Hayward but apparently he already knew that something like this might happen and ambushed us," she continued. "Used these blocks to alert him of our presence and tucked pillows under the duvet to make it look like he was asleep before spraying us with this...stuff."

The girl gestured to the silly string she was still tugging off herself in lumps.

Allison looked at the pair with a mixture of disbelief and was that...amusement? And then shook her head. "Do you mean to tell me that you got yourselves tricked by an eleven-year old trainee?"

"No." Luke said, with hints of defiance.

"Yep," Laura nodded. "Kid got us fair and square. I admit I'm impressed."

"Well I'll take your word for it Laura," Allison smiled. "Come on, you better go and get that stuff off of you, looks like there's loads of it there."

When the two nodded and disappeared behind the door, Allison turned and looked at Alfie. "So I'm guessing that was what you were using these toy building blocks for? I bet you're glad that I didn't take them off you after that, eh?"

Alfie grinned meekly. "Sorry."

"This is will be something to tell my co-workers," Allison just chuckled and looked at the watch on her arm. "You have about an hour to kill before you need to get up for basic training, I'd wish you luck but it looks as though you already have that covered."

~oOo~

Alfie ended up getting to the training compound on time. The building and the enclosure was closed off from the rest of campus with a five-metre high fence that reminded him awfully of a prison. Their temporary home for the one-hundred days was a concrete box directly in the middle of the compound with no heating and windows. When he got there, there were at least four others already there, leaving three more still to come. The kids were lined up in front of rusty looking beds with mattresses in disgusting conditions. There were ten beds in total and Alfie stood at number three.

Their leading instructor, who Alfie already knew as Mr Hayward, stood impatiently at the front of the room, flanked by his two white shirt assistants. Mr Hayward had his long raven black hair pulled tightly into a ponytail, so tight in fact; it looked as though his hair was going to be pulled from his scalp at any moment.

The man had cold and calculating pale blue eyes as he surveyed his students with a curl of his lip. His muscles were well toned, but not immensely big that they bulged out from under the sleeve of his own white T-shirt. They were told to remain standing silently in front of their beds for another minute, until Hayward looked at his watch and shook his head with a sad sigh.

"Looks like some of our kiddos are late boys," he said before a grin stretched itself across his lips as he took in the sights of the current five kids and clapped his hands. "Alright, so do any of you kids know how to do the plank?"

He looked around expectantly and it took a moment for all of them to realise that someone was supposed to put their hand up and answer.

One hand went up.

"Grace Rosa," Hayward nodded his head at the brown-haired girl standing at bed eight. "Would you be so kind and do us a demonstration of a plank for the rest of your _lovely_ teammates?"

Grace looked as though she'd rather do anything other than that but reluctantly got down on the floor anyway. She placed her forearms on the ground and adjusted her elbows on the floor so that they aligned below her shoulders and grounded her toes onto the ground so she was standing on them. Her neck pointed straight ahead so she was looking at one particular spot on the floor. It looked straining.

"The rest of you copy what she's doing," Hayward demanded and everyone scrambled to the floor and began moving themselves into that position. "You'll remain like that until our dear friends arrive and if I see anyone of you move, there will be a douse of icy cold water from the firehose awaiting you right here."

Alfie already hated basic training.


	16. STRAIN

**16\. STRAIN**

They remained in that position until the three hurried figures of the very late trainees rushed in around an hour and a half later. Alfie's clothes were soaking wet because his muscles got too strained and he ended up getting drenched by the firehose for his troubles.

"It's so _great_ that you finally decided to join us guys," Hayward laughed melodramatically as the kids chucked down their bags and hurriedly lined up in front of their beds accordingly. "Your friends here have been having one heck of a time waiting for you lovely kids to get your arses into gear."

A boy who stood at bed four and who had also felt the impact of the firehose next to Alfie, named Jake Matthews mumbled something incoherent and almost immediately regretted it as soon as Hayward zoomed in on him. "What was that Jakey?" he asked as he walked towards him. "Is there something you would like to say, Mr Matthews?"

Jake shook his head. "N-No sir."

Hayward examined him from head to toe before letting out a huff. "I take it you're a defiant one, eh Jakey? Think you can be all smart and cocky? Well then this isn't going to work out between us if you keep up this way; I think another zap of the firehose might freshen up that obviously atrocious attitude of yours. David? Could you do the honours?"

"Of course I can."

One of his assistants smiled and nodded, grabbing the hose from where it had been rolled away in the corner and walking towards the wide-eyed boy. Alfie himself got a bit wet from the blast of the hose that left the poor kid shivering frantically in the already cold room.

"Let us get one thing straight, for the next one-hundred days; you have to follow _my_ rules. And if any of those rules are broken," he gestured to Jake. "That will be your outcome, do all of you understand?"

"Yes Mr Hayward," the voices of the trainees, including Alfie's own, echoed around the room.

Mr Hayward smiled. "Excellent, let's begin with our _to-die-for_ schedule, shall we? Every single day during your one-hundred day training will begin at 0545 followed by a nice cold shower and a run of the assault course. Breakfast begins at 0700, preceded by lots of delightful physical training until your schooling starts at 0900 which includes Survival Skills, Weaponry, Espionage and Language. Got that so far kids?"

There were a few collective rumbles of 'yes' and 'yes sir' around the room.

Hayward put a hand to his ear. "I didn't quite hear that."

"Yes sir," they all chanted.

Satisfied with the response, Hayward continued. "1400 will be another run of the assault course and will last approximately an hour until 1500 when you will be served lunch. Another hour on that, at 1600 will be two _more_ hours of physical training before at 1800 all of you lovelies will meet back here where you'll shower, wash and polish all your clothes and boots until they're immaculate. Any spot found on your clothes after you clean them will be followed up by me soaking all your beds with the hose and you'll have to sleep on them." he grabbed the hose and held it up in an almost demonstration as if they didn't know what it already was.

"Dinner will be served at 1900, you'll do your homework from 1930 to 2030 before you'll brush your teeth and go to bed at 2045. And to top all of your hard work off, you'll be taken abroad and put through tasks in a certain foreign environment."

Mr Hayward let out a sigh of relief after having to deliver all that information in one go and gave them a smile. "Now, let's sort you into pairs shall we?"

There were a total of eight kids, and all of them were separated into four individual pairs. Unfortunately, Alfie was paired with Jake who looked as though he was going to bolt at any moment. Jake was ten-years-old and came from a suburban area in Cardiff called Pontcanna. He had lived with his mum and younger brother until their mum had got into a car accident and died from her injuries.

Elissa Archer was paired with a boy called Kurt Wallace, with Elissa moving from France to England when she younger and Kurt from Northern Ireland. Declan, who was paired up with Grace, came from Florida in the USA to the city of Portsmouth five-years ago with his father. His dad went missing and was found dead in an alleyway halfway across the city. His murderer was never found.

The last two were named Hugo and Amanda who both came from London like Alfie.

They were all immediately led towards the assault course and Alfie realised that he had to actually talk to his partner if they wanted to get through this. "Do you have any weaknesses?" he asked, though he thought it was a rather dumb question.

Jake shrugged. "Probably."

"Well you're going to have to tell me if we're going to actually get anywhere with this."

"I don't have to tell you anything," the boy sneered. "Just follow _my_ lead."

Alfie felt like punching him in the face than following him around but he restrained himself. They crawled through the muddy tunnels as fast as they could; Jake snatched the rope that you used to cross the lake from Alfie's grasp and swung across. However, he misjudged by a long shot and ended up falling headfirst into the lake below and Alfie tried his best to hide a smirk when he landed perfectly on the other side. Jake crawled to the embankment of the lake covered in mud and looking like a drowned rat.

It was when they came to swimming across the lake that Alfie realised Jake wasn't exactly a strong swimmer but whenever he tried to help him he would growl that he was fine on his own and continue helplessly splashing around. He eventually, grudgingly, let Alfie help him but they still ended up being the last pair to reach the muddy patch of field where everyone was doing physical training. Just for being late, every time they did a star jump, push-up, squat or crunches, they were sprayed with the firehose. By the time they finally finished that part of the day's activities, Alfie was so cold he felt as if his limbs might freeze up and he could barely keep his trembling hands still.

Jake, on the other hand, kept shooting Alfie glares as if them being late was entirely his fault. It was taking everything in his power not to hit Jake for being an imbecile.

Lessons were (as expected) complicated, five long hours of lectures and work with stiff and sore limbs brought him to the edge of giving up. They did another run of the assault course and ended up with the same results and he was practically seething when yet again they received the punishment of the firehose for being last.

It seemed as if Jake had the same mindset because after David blasted him with the icy cold water for the twentieth time whilst midway through a push-up, he got up and took off crying out of the compound. Alfie would've felt sorry for him if he hadn't been such an annoying partner. As David watched the boy disappear, he turned and looked at Alfie with a grin. "Did I say stop?" he said. "Keep moving unless you want to follow in little Jakey's footsteps."

Once they all had finished their dinner, they were instructed to complete the homework the teachers during their lessons had set them for an hour. Alfie felt miserable as he brushed his teeth and climbed into his protesting bed as the lights went out for the night.


	17. PAIN

**17\. PAIN**

By the time they reached Day Forty-Two, they were down to only four.

Elissa and Declan received injuries to their arm and leg, sweeping them of the possibility of coming back until three months time. Kurt, lost without his partner, didn't even last two more days until he was finally pushed to the brink. He grabbed all his things and took off out of the compound. Hayward watched him go with a smile, but Alfie couldn't help it and spotted a hint of disappointment within his eyes.

"Alright kiddos keep sparring," he snapped angrily. "If you keep gawping, I'm going to make sure you wished you joined him."

Alfie was paired up with Grace after Declan left, and he was getting utterly destroyed in the martial arts department. He groaned in pain as he was flipped over Grace's back and slammed onto the grass. "Sorry," Grace winced. "Come on, you can keep going."

Gradually, the schooling they had between all the course runs and physical training got easier. Alfie's favourite was the Espionage lessons where they learnt about electronic listening devices, cameras, explosives (Alfie's least favourite), photocopiers, lock pickings and the best one of all; computer hacking, which he was pretty decent at. Their teacher was an American named Mr Langston who, previously to this, used to work in Tactical Operations for the FBI. Sometimes he would be nice, other times he would be as strict as Mr Hayward and everyday when they walked into his classroom, they hoped that it was one of his good days.

In Language, everyone began to learn a new language from scratch; Alfie, who already knew German, was given the task of learning French with Amanda. Hugo and Grace were told to start learning Russian as both of them, being red shirts, had learnt Spanish with their classes.

Miss Dubois sat with Alfie and Amanda everyday and gave them fairly enjoyable lessons and was actually beginning to learn the language. Hugo and Grace, on the other hand, had a mean and strict teacher, and weren't having much luck with theirs. "Comment allez-vous?" Alfie asked Amanda with a smirk.

Amanda grinned. "Je vais bein, merci. Quel âge avez-vous?"

"J'ai onze ans."

Miss Dubois clapped and smiled. "Trés bien!"

~oOo~

Day Sixty-Four was Christmas Day but they didn't do anything special to celebrate it. Mr Hayward still marched them outside on Christmas morning towards the assault course and Alfie and Grace still found themselves crawling through the mud tunnels and swinging across the lake. Only this time there was an improvement. Alfie and Grace managed to beat Hugo and Amanda, who always came first in finishing the assault course.

The two of them were only metres behind as they swam across the lake at their fastest speed and clambered over the two-hundred metre stretch of jagged rocks, avoiding getting splashed by the hose by metres. They had two hours of physical training on the patch of muddy grass before heading to the classrooms to experience another five hours of learning French, getting beat up in karate and learning all the possible ways to disable a bomb and pick locks. Alfie hoped that this would be his first and final Christmas spent this way and he could've sworn that Mr Hayward left the door to his office open on purpose so they could smell the Christmas dinner as they ate their partially dry stir fry and did their homework.

Alfie gritted his teeth in annoyance when the sound of crackers being split and cheery laughter broke the silence whilst they were doing their homework. He almost ripped up the French essay that Miss Dubois had set them in anger if Grace hadn't stopped him.

~oOo~

Alfie countered Grace's palm-heel strike with a forearm block before swinging a roundhouse kick aimed towards his opponents face.

However, Grace had anticipated this move and managed to dodge out of the way, following up with back fist strike. Her fist slammed into the bridge of Alfie's nose and he soon found himself sprawled out on the soggy wet ground, his nose stinging from the impact. He grasped at his face as he stumbled to his feet again.

"You're getting better," Grace gasped as she tried to catch her breath. "You almost had me that time."

Because they had no dojo within the training compound, they had to make do with standing barefoot upon the fields surrounding the training building. Alfie had ended up slipping most of the time.

Mr Hayward marched around the two pairs, inspecting them very closely. When he finally stopped barking out criticism at Hugo and Amanda, he spotted the pair of them not sparring and zoomed in on them. He knocked Alfie forwards, sending him toppling towards Grace. "Did I tell you to stop?" he shouted. "Keep going you brats or you're going to have a pair of soggy beds to sleep in tonight!"

He grabbed Grace by the shoulders to stop her from falling before resuming a cat stance. "I really, _really_ hate him..." he mumbled when the man disappeared again.

"Join the club." Grace muttered just as she performed a front kick.

Alfie used the sliding step foot movement to avoid the offence and find an opening, something Grace obviously hadn't predicted because Alfie's round hook punch soon found its target on the side of the girl's stomach. She let out a small yelp, stepping backwards in surprise and clutching the impact point that was sure to bruise over night.

"I'm so sorry..." Alfie tried to say but Grace interrupted him.

"Don't say sorry! This is what we're supposed to do you dimwit," Grace laughed and shook her head, re-adjusting her feet once again, only this time into an hourglass stance. "Let's go again."

~oOo~

They were sprinting over a two-hundred metre stretch of jagged rocks, it was the final assault course run of the day and once again Alfie and Grace were in the lead. They still had two more hours of physical training but right at that moment; they didn't care, and were just too eager to beat the other pair five days in a row.

They ran up to where Mr Hayward and his two other assistants were stood waiting and began doing the typical beginning push-ups. Hugo and Amanda followed soon after, dropping to the floor and doing the same. "Swan and Rosa win again," Hayward nodded his slight approval followed by a grin when he glanced at the other pair of trainees. "Looks like these two are getting the hose again."

Alfie heard Hugo groan as David unleashed a bolt of freezing water all over him and Amanda.

"Star jumps now." Hayward barked and they jumped to their feet, with Hugo and Amanda earning another wash of water after their tenth jump.

After the star jumps, they were instructed to begin fifty laps around the muddy field and this time, the pairs were even more eager to beat each other. "Just cut us some slack for once and take the hose," Alfie heard Hugo shout from behind them as his boots squelched into the muddy ground. "Come on!"

"Piss off!" Alfie replied, his back aching from the rocks in his large rucksack. "Get faster!"

Grace was too tired to make much of a reaction from these words, but she did give him a disapproving glance before continuing to run. Alfie knew he shouldn't have responded, his exhaustion mixed with his grudge against Mr Hayward fired a spark of anger that he couldn't control. And as expected, Hugo did not take this reply very well.

Alfie felt something step on the back of his ankle causing him to lose his balance and fall. His rucksack full of rocks painfully crashed against his head as he pitched headfirst into the mud and rolled.

Hugo grinned at him as he passed by. "Take that, arsehole – let's see how you like the hose."

"Moron!" Alfie growled as Grace helped him get back onto this feet, his clothes now caked in mud. "You're a bloody cheat!"

"Calm down," Grace told him softly. "It's not the end of the world, if you do something stupid it could jeopardise our chances of passing. We've got this far."

Alfie clenched his fists and took a deep breath, before nodding. "Sorry."

"It's okay," she smiled, as they began their run again. Hugo and Amanda were now twenty metres in front and it looked as though they were going to be the ones to get the shoot of the hose this time. He groaned internally at the thought as Grace continued. "We'll get em' next time, for sure."

They arrived back to where Mr Hayward and the other white shirts were, a few minutes after Hugo and Amanda. Alfie had to bite his tongue when Hugo smirked knowingly in his direction as David turned the firehose towards them as expected. Eventually, Mr Hayward began to speak. "Tomorrow, as the last days of your training approach, we'll be going on a little trip to someplace tropical. You will complete several tasks and at the very end, you'll earn your grey CHERUB T-shirts and will officially be qualified for missions."

Alfie made the mistake of smiling because David once again turned the jet of water onto him and Grace, making them squeal in surprise. "Squats!" Mr Hayward shouted and they changed again. "You mustn't get so cocky yet Swan because these tasks are no walk in the park. If you fail them, you'll have to restart the whole process again in three months and I will make _sure_ to go to extra lengths in order to make your lives as miserable as possible."

He felt the feeling of dread form in his stomach at this thought. Alfie had no idea how Grace must've survived having to restart this three times, because he could barely comprehend doing this whole thing again. "Don't like that thought do you?" Mr Hayward grinned.

 _No,_ Alfie thought. _No I don't._


	18. NEAR

**18\. NEAR**

The sound of something violently clashing against the wall shook them all awake the next day. Alfie groaned when he realised where they were going today. Hayward had mentioned something about it being tropical so Alfie guessed it was some kind of jungle at least. The simple thought of that frightened Alfie.

"Wakey, wakey kiddos! Rise and shine!" the man shouted and they immediately all stood to attention. "The minibus taking us to Heathrow Airport is leaving in ten minutes. If you're not dressed and ready by then, we'll just simply leave without you and you'll have the delight of restarting training."

Alfie quickly scrambled over to his things, changed and brushed his teeth amongst the other three in around five minutes. They grabbed their belongings and hurried outside the training compound where the instructors were stood waiting for them, eventually getting onto the minibus with one minute to spare. He glanced out of the window as the bus passed through the CHERUB campus security gates and out into the open roads. Promising himself that when he returned to the campus, he would be wearing a grey T-shirt.

~oOo~

The first thing that hit them when they got off the plane at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport after a seemingly endless thirteen hour flight was the heat. The sudden temperature difference between the UK was shocking. Whilst at home, they were still just recovering from winter; here it just seemed like mid-summer.

Four kids and the three instructors piled into a hired shuttle van and began their journey through wide roads while the evening sun beamed above them. Luckily for Alfie, he had caught a few precious hours of sleep on the journey here and was tempted to catch one more during the van ride but decided against it. He stared out of the windows as they entered the stream of traffic weaving in and out through the large city.

Huge skyscrapers unlike the ones in London, towered up in the distance – reminding Alfie of some huge monoliths holding up the sky.

Grace got Alfie's attention by squeezing his hand and giving him a comforting smile. "Don't worry; it's only four days left now," she mumbled so the other two wouldn't hear. "We'll be getting our grey shirts in no time."

Hugo and Amanda were too busy pressing their faces against the van's window to pay any attention to them. The shuttle driver, a middle-aged man wasn't very pleased with the kids fogging up his windows and shouted at them in Malay.

"How can you be so sure?" Alfie asked, going back to admiring the sparkling tall buildings as night began to fall onto the capital.

"I just...have a good feeling, I guess," she shrugged. "The last two times I started basic training, I didn't have a good feeling about it. Like I knew somehow it was going to go wrong, but this time – I'm not getting that. My gut tells me we're going to make it."

"Well," Alfie smirked. "Let's hope your gut is telling the truth."

~oOo~

Alfie practically dived into the one of the two queen-sized beds in their hotel room when both he and Grace got in. It was around eight in the evening as Grace opened the doors to the balcony. "Hugo and Amanda got the swimming pool view on the other side of the building," she laughed while she shook her head. "But this doesn't seem so bad."

He dragged himself off of the plush duvet and pillows, and moved to where Grace was standing on the edges of the balcony. In the distance you could just see the twinkling lights of the city while bunches of tropical trees were dotted all over the rolling hills and surrounding mountains. "It is very nice." Alfie agreed.

There was a knock on the door behind them.

"Alright losers," Hugo said. "Last one down by the pool gets the honour of being pushed in."

Alfie stared at him. "You're on," he said. "No way am I letting a cheating scumbag like you win."

Both him and Grace raced forwards just as Hugo squealed in surprise and took off down the hallway, towards the elevators. He pressed at one of the buttons frantically but Alfie decided that using the stairwell was better than waiting ages for a cheap ride down. Grace seemed to have caught onto Alfie's idea and followed quickly behind him, while the occasional frustrated shouts of impatient anger floated from upstairs. Their guesses were that the lift had still failed to arrive.

They squeezed passed all the other guests, dressed as though they just came back from first class dining, and out through the double doors that led out into the pool area.

Behind them the lift dinged open and an irritated looking Hugo stormed out, but it was already too late. He had lost and he knew it. "Great," he mumbled. "Stupid freaking elevator. Alright, let's just get this over with than shall we?"

"Of course you were too lazy to take the stairs," Amanda giggled as the three of them forced Hugo up to the highest diving board that measured to about seven metres. His partner stepped behind him as he walked to the edges of the board and without issuing a warning, pushed her hands against his back and sending him spinning towards the chlorine pool below. He floated to the surface a few seconds later, spluttering and coughing.

"Watch out!" Amanda called, running up and doing a terrible front flip off of the diving board. They heard Hugo shout in alarm before the sound of crashing water muffled the sound.

Alfie stood on the board next and looked down. It looks as though Amanda didn't fall on Hugo after all but they were having a miniature splash fight as they swam towards the shallow end. The height sent a jolt of nervousness to his stomach, though he immediately forced it away as soon as it occurred. "Come on," Grace shouted from behind him. "Get going, we haven't got all night boy."

"I'm going –" he went to say just as Grace crashed into him, toppling them both over the edge and into the water. Alfie pushed off from the ground and resurfaced soon after, greeted by his giggling training partner.

"What was that all about?" he asked, he couldn't help but grin.

"I slipped! You wouldn't have jumped anyway!"

"Oh sure," Alfie rolled his eyes. "You totally didn't do that on purpose. You know, if you gave me the chance I would've done a proper flip into the pool."

"You can't do a flip to save your life!"

"Oh yeah? You think? Then watch this," he swam to the edge of the pool and headed up the diving board again. To be fair he'd never done a front-flip off of a diving board in his life but from watching Amanda do one, he thought he had it covered. Of course, he was very much mistaken. "Just watch this amazing stunt I'm about to pull, my friends."

"More like pull a muscle." Amanda called.

"Shove off."

"Come on, get a move on then," Grace said from the bottom. "If you think you're so Olympic-worthy."

Alfie ignored the anxiety he felt from the height and raced forwards, jumping at the last second. However he miscalculated the amount of velocity he would need for the actual flip and ended up stuck upside down as he fell. His limbs flailed helplessly before he hit the water head first. He was more embarrassed than hurt by this outcome and his cheeks blushed furiously as the three other trainees let out howls of laughter.

"So elegant," Grace cried, slapping the water. "That's a definite ten out of ten from me, boy."

"Ten out of ten?" Hugo scoffed. "I would rate that masterpiece as an eleven."

"I'm going for twenty," Amanda added. "The landing was just legendary, a real one for the history books."

"Alright...alright," Alfie grumbled, sinking lower into the water so the surface sat just below his chin. "I get it, it was absolutely atrocious."

As soon as they got back to their rooms, Alfie went for a shower in the ensuite bathroom and spent around twenty-minutes just savouring some warm water in what felt like forever. Back at the training compound on campus, the possibility of having a warm shower in the evening was depending on the mood of Mr Hayward, and his mood was rarely a good one. After drying himself off and changing into some clean clothes, he dived into the bed closest to the balcony as Grace flicked through the channels. However, much to their chagrin, most of them were in Malay – a language none of them understood.

"You won't get much luck with that I expect," Alfie told her. "I'm going to bed now, I think we're gonna need the energy for tomorrow."

"Smart choice." Grace nodded, sighing and turning off the television before switching off the lights.


	19. ALONE

**19\. ALONE**

Just before dawn the next morning, the four of them were split into two different jeeps and handed blindfolds.

David and Harris, the two other assistant instructors, went off with Hugo and Amanda whereas Alfie and Grace were stuck with Mr Hayward. They felt the man fitting them with an electronic wristband which, in case of an emergency, would send out their location to the instructors.

"All of the items you need for these tasks are all in your backpacks. Each of you has four checkpoints to reach within the seventy-two hour timeframe and at the moment it's approximately 1000 hours," he informed them over the roar of the jeep's engine. "If you don't reach those checkpoints in the target time, you've failed your mission and you'll be sent back to campus knowing that you'll have to repeat this whole process again. Understood?"

"Yes sir," both of them said.

"Mistakes in this jungle will have much more severe consequences than they would if you were back in the training compound so for God's sake; think out your plans wisely," he told them firmly. "Use what you've learnt from the past ninety-six days; you don't want all that work to go to waste now do you?"

They shook their heads.

"Good," he said as Alfie felt the jeep begin to slow down. "We're here at your planned drop-off point; your briefings will explain your tasks completely. They'll one at each checkpoint."

Next to him, the door opened and he was suddenly hit with a wave of warm air as the pair of them scrambled out of the car and were guided to face a certain direction. They heard Hayward's heavy footsteps move back towards the vehicle. "You can take your blindfolds off once you've stopped hearing the sound of this car," the man chuckled. "Good luck kiddies, hopefully I'll see you on the other side."

The door slammed shut and they heard the jeep speed away.

It was around two minutes later until all they could hear was the sound of birds chirping and the occasional rustling sound of the wind. Alfie took off his blindfold and squinted as he welcomed the sight of being in the middle of a jungle. Behind them there was a small muddy narrow path that the jeep must've disappeared down and all around them were tall, twisting trees that created a canopy of protection from the sun. Their clothes, consisting of lightweight trousers and unmarked long-sleeved blue tops, they also had a hat with pull-down flaps that protected their head, necks and ears from the sun's vicious rays.

Grace immediately began rummaging through her backpack for own briefing as Alfie grabbed onto his and read it. "Crap it's in French," he said, narrowing his eyes to see the words better. "I think I can understand the basics of mine, how about you?"

"Same, if we can compare what we've read and go from there."

It didn't take them more than two minutes to work out what they were supposed to do. A map marking out the route they needed to take with a compass to help them figure out the direction they were heading was placed in the pocket of their packs. Grace took the compass and held it upwards; the pointed needle swivelled around until it hit a point between south and west.

"We're facing the wrong direction," Grace said, and started spinning around until the needle landed directly on the north point of the dial. "We need to go that way, according to our map and this compass."

Alfie looked up and spotted a small, makeshift pathway between a close cluster of trees and nodded.

They continued searching the contents of their packs, finding things such as a first-aid kit and medicine, an empty water canteen, emergency rations, water purification tablets, sunscreen, bin bags, a long thick rope with an iron hook, a Swiss army knife, a machete and a plastic pool that Grace told him could be used for collecting the rainwater that falls every occasional hour. Grace chucked out a tent with metal poles into the undergrowth before looking at the map again as they began walking.

"Judging by the scaling on this map, we have to walk over at least twenty miles north until we reach the first checkpoint," she explained. "There is a ravine that we have to cross over."

"Twenty miles?" he gaped. "What – that's like thirty-two kilometres, isn't it?"

"Something like that," she sighed and then looked at the sky, where there was a gathering of some grey looking clouds. "We better get going. I say there's also going to be some rain soon, so we might need to stop for awhile to set up the paddling pool to collect some drinking water."

It didn't rain until a few hours later after they spent around four and a half miles clambering and chopping their way through the jungle. Alfie had used the machete in his pack to hack through any vines and tangled undergrowth that got in their way.

They set up the paddling pool and took shelter underneath a giant alcove in a tree as the rain battered the ground. Thankfully, the rain only lasted for around two to three minutes, and they were eager to drink the fresh water up in almost one go. However, not wanting to waste anymore time, they poured the rest into one of the bin bags and filled their canteens to the brim before heading back on track again.

After a while, they came across a giant fallen tree trunk which Alfie helped Grace climb over before handing up their heavy packs and lifting them over. They continued on, without any problems, for another four miles until they stopped at the ravine Grace mentioned before. The gap between the two sides looked around to be just less than three metres wide and their only form of crossing was broken. "Great," Grace said in exasperation as they spotted the fallen bridge made up of wooden panels and thick rope which dangled down from two unsafe looking wooden posts. "What do we do now?"

"How wide do you think it looks?" he asked, pointing to the gap.

Grace shrugged, and then peered at it more closely. "I say just above two-hundred and fifty centimetres. Neither of us are tall enough to reach across and grab the bridge's ropes."

"I'm just over five feet tall," Alfie said. "That's around one-hundred and fifty centimetres. If we use the rope with the hook that you had in your pack, I could lean over and try to grab the bridge's ropes that way. You could pull me back up once I've grabbed it."

Grace looked uneasy with the idea; her eyes glanced down at the rushing rapid river down below. If Alfie was to fall from that height, the result wouldn't be pretty. "I don't know about this," she said, but placed her pack on the ground and begun rummaging through it. She pulled out the rope; from the looks of things it appeared to be around ten metres long. "You have a fear of heights, maybe I should do it."

Alfie shook his head. "I need to get over it someway," he pointed to a tree. "Tie one end around my waist and dig the hook into that tree. It should be stable enough for me to lean across."

Still not looking convinced, Grace wrapped the thick rope around Alfie's waist and tied it until it was almost unbearably tight. Then she grabbed the hook and hammered it into the closest tree and tugged at it until she was sure it wasn't likely to budge. She looked over back at Alfie. "If this thing slips, I won't be able to grab onto it without getting some serious rope burn," she said, shaking her head. "This is a terrible idea."

"Do you have another suggestion?" Alfie asked, raising an eyebrow. "It will take ten times longer to climb down the ravine and back over it again. Think of this as a shortcut."

"You know for someone who has acrophobia, I'm surprised you're encouraging this," Grace replied as she stood beside him on the edge of the ravine. "Aren't you scared?"

"Oh, I'm terrified," he replied, holding up his hands to show Grace them trembling. "But I've had this stupid fear since as long as I can remember – I need to learn to get over it somehow."

And with his mind screaming at him that this was a _really_ bad idea, Alfie began to lean over and his heart lurched when he saw the bottom. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to stop everything in his peripheral from spinning and then opened them again. He took a deep breath and dropped forwards with a gasp as his body thudded to a stop in a horizontal position. "It actually worked," Grace remarked with surprise. "The rope is keeping you from falling."

Alfie shot his partner a grin despite the fact that he felt as though he was about to throw up at any moment. "Did you ever doubt me?" he said.

She gave him a sceptical look. "Yes, yes I did – I doubted you a lot."

"And do you doubt me now?" he wiggled his eyebrows. "I just saved us a heck lot of time."

"You're also dangling above a twenty-metre drop so if I was you, I would hurry up and grab that stupid bridge you moron before you fall," she crossed her arms. "I don't want to have to fail my basic training this far in because you came up with a stupid idea and plunged to your death."

"Oh yeah," he rolled his eyes. "Because failing your basic training is what you're actually worried about at this point. You care about me really."

"Don't flatter yourself."

Alfie scoffed and kept his eyes trained forwards, ignoring the roar of his blood rushing in his ears. The ropes connected to the bridge were in, surprisingly, good condition so it's likely that one of the instructors purposely untied it to create a nuisance for them. He stretched out his arms and just managed to hook his index finger around the rope and tugged it closer towards him so he could get a hold of it properly. The wooden planks rattled as he pulled it across the gap and handed the left-side to Grace's outstretched hand.

The girl hastily tied one of the bridge's ends to the wooden poles and then reached out towards him. She just managed to haul him back up before his stomach lurched and he found himself puking up in the nearby undergrowth. Last night's dinner from the hotel's restaurant was now unpleasantly splashed up against some random tree in a Malaysian jungle.

Once he had finally stopped gagging, Grace handed him his canteen. "Thanks." he gasped and looked back at the bridge. She had finished tying up the ends and it was now back intact, ready for them to cross it.

The cool water hitting his dry throat felt amazing as he gulped down the rainwater from the bottle.

"Are you okay?" Grace asked him.

"I'll be fine," he reassured her, untying himself from the rope and heading over to collect his pack, his hands were still shaking. "We should keep going, like you said – we don't want to fail basic training now after getting so far."

Alfie took the first step, ignoring his heart hammering against his chest. The bridge creaked and groaned but remained fairly steady and he continued the rest of the way, followed closely behind by Grace. Both of them let out a huge sigh of relief when they finally reached the other side.

~oOo~

It was around 1740 hours when they got to their second checkpoint the next day. Their shelter for the night was a small wooden shack resting on the bank of a river. A narrow pathway capable of allowing at least a medium sized car passed, trailed all the way up the river as far as they could currently see. There was a smaller structure, a shed, next to the shack and when they peeked inside they were thrilled to find it occupied by a small 4x4 mud truck looking vehicle. It was painted a dark green, and the dried mud suggested it had been there for a while.

"I think I recognise that," he narrowed his eyes at the large wheels, lifted frame and no roof. "That's from the Jeep CJ line of off-road vehicles, isn't it?"

Grace eyed him. "How on earth do you know that?"

"Because I read once that the first batch of them was meant to be for the post-war civilian market, I recognise the design from an old picture," Alfie explained. "A company called Willys designed the first two prototypes in 1944 – when the Allies were beginning to win the war."

"You said modern history isn't your thing," Grace replied sceptically. "That doesn't sound like you hate it."

"I don't hate it," he said. "I just haven't learnt it all yet."

She sighed, rubbing her sore eyes. "Alright then," she said. "How does it run anyway?"

"An engine."

Grace glared and swatted at him. "I know that you arse, I meant petrol-wise."

He grinned and walked into the shed, sat in the corner was a red plastic box with a yellow lid covering the nozzle. "That's a fuel container," Alfie said, leaning on his knees and lifting it up. "It's full, but not to the top. That won't get us all the way to the next checkpoint, but it'll help."

"So, they expect us to drive this thing off-road?"

Alfie looked up at his partner and smiled excitedly. "Dibs on driving."

Half an hour later, Alfie strolled into the wooden shack holding several pieces of dry wood he found whilst exploring the jungle. Grace quickly set up the fire underneath the old mantelpiece. "This must've been some kind of fishing hut because it's near the river," Grace told him as she set a bunch of paper alight and chucked them onto the wood where it began crackling and spitting. "Only been recently touched though."

Alfie looked around. The shack was one giant room with a large wooden table situated in the middle and what seemed to have been the kitchen area in the corner as well as a chest and more supplies with their next briefing. "Not surprised," Alfie said, wrinkling his nose. "Looks like something you would stay in during the apocalypse. In the middle of nowhere, access to food and water and completely isolated from all of mankind – the perfect combination."

"Then it's a great place for our training," Grace smiled. "Do you have the chickpeas? There's a grate that we can use to cook it over."

"Yeah it's in my pack."

He grabbed the two cans of chickpeas and tugged them open, dumping them inside one of the metal saucepan's Grace found in the cupboards from the kitchen area. Grace had gathered some water from the river outside and used a few of the water purification tablets to kill off any of the water-borne organisms that might've contaminated it before placing it on top of the grate to boil.

Alfie furrowed his eyebrows. "How will they know if we've reached these two checkpoints in time?"

Grace pointed to the wristband Mr Hayward had placed on them. "These are trackers; they're probably watching our movements on a computer somewhere."

"Handy."

Overall, they figured that the chickpeas should take around one and half hours to properly become tender, leaving them plenty of time to go over their next briefings.

"There's no way we can refill the fuel container once we've left here so it will only take us so far before it dies and we have to ditch it somewhere," Alfie explained, pulling the second mission briefing out of its plastic file. "They've probably put a tracker on it so they can collect it later after we've reached the last checkpoint."

"Most likely," Grace nodded, scanning over her parts of the briefing detailed in Russian. "According to this we'll have to cross a river in order to reach the next trail, then we'll hike up a mountain and _then_ reach the next checkpoint."

"Perfect," Alfie said with a sigh, lying backwards on the musty wooden panelled floor. "Swimming across a potential rapid river, how _not_ incredibly life threatening."

"I'm sure they wouldn't put us in any immediate danger, there might be alternative ways around it – but enough of that," his partner replied, placing down her briefing beside her and shuffling forwards so she was lying directly next to Alfie. Under the mantelpiece, the water was beginning to sizzle. "You know it's just occurred to me that I don't really know you properly."

"Well, my life story isn't exactly exciting."

"I don't care," she smiled. "Tell me, where ya from? How did ya get to CHERUB?"

"If I tell you, you'll tell me your story as well?"

"Sure."

Alfie sighed. "Okay well, I was born in Oxford but raised in west London with my parents. My mum was German, she moved to England from a place called Düsseldorf with my grandparents when she was young and my dad was adopted when his parents died in a car accident. They met in Oxford, married in the same year," he grudgingly continued. "A few years ago my mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer and was transferred to a hospice. When she died, it was just me and my dad. He was a computer programmer and a video game developer."

Grace grinned. "That sounds like one cool profession."

Alfie finally cracked a small smile at this but continued. "At the end of September last year, he was murdered, a stab wound – the police claim that it was some robbery gone wrong. I ended up in a care home, unknowingly met an agent and was recruited for CHERUB."

He bit his bottom lip when he finished, he felt guilty for not thinking of his dad whilst he'd been in training.

"I'm sorry Alfie," Grace said. "I wouldn't have asked you if I knew it was too painful for you-"

"No, no..." Alfie quickly reassured her. "It actually feels quite nice to talk about it. It's your turn."

Grace chuckled. "My parents got themselves each a nice life sentence for murdering my grandparents."

"Jesus." Alfie breathed with wide eyes.

"I know," she said with a shake of her head. "They wanted the family fortune that my mum couldn't inherit until my grandparents died and we were struggling, a family of six isn't exactly easy financial-wise. They almost got away with it but some new Inspector reopened the case. I was too young to understand what was mostly going on; Caitlyn, my older sister, tried to protect us by keeping it all a secret and then tell us when were old enough to understand."

"I can understand that," Alfie shook his head in disbelief. "No kid should have to go through something like that, my God."

Grace was silent for a while, she sat upwards and started stirring at the chickpeas with an old wooden spoon retrieved from one of the shack's draws. Alfie couldn't imagine what Grace and her siblings must've gone through once they realised what their parents had done. What would you think if you found out your parents took a life? That they really weren't what they seemed.

He grabbed his canteen and gulped down some more rainwater.

"Do you want kids?"

His eyes bulged as he choked and spluttered in surprise. "Um," he croaked, wiping some of the water now dripping down his face. "T-that's a bit forward, isn't it?"

The girl stared at him as a blush started form across her face. "I didn't mean with me you dimwit," she spluttered, looking away to steam in embarrassment. "God, you're such a moron – I just meant in the future in general. I couldn't care less _who_ you have them with."

He shrugged, trying to stop himself from grinning. "I mean I guess I would want kids," he said. "But nobody really knows for sure until they're at least an adult."

"I suppose so." Grace mumbled in reply, though her reddened cheeks were still visible.


	20. FUTURE

**20\. FUTURE**

They rose bright and early the next morning, completely ready to take on their next series of tasks that involved crossing a rapid river and hiking up a mountain.

Grace gathered all their belongings whilst Alfie opened up the shed again and carefully filled up the 4x4 with the petrol from the fuel container. Even after tipping all the petroleum-derived liquid into the vehicle, the tank was still far from full.

After placing the cap back onto the nozzle of the fuel container and discarding the plastic box back into the corner of the shed, he hopped into the driver's seat and tried to go over what he had learnt from the past few months as he guided the 4x4 into a slight reverse. Once he pulled the vehicle into a stop, Grace came round from the back and piled on their packs and equipment before slipping into the passenger seat. She had their map spread across her knees along with their two mission briefings and compass.

"We're still heading directly north," she informed him, holding up the compass where the needle was just facing the letter N on the dial. "There should be a man-made dirt track that you can take the 4x4 down."

"You mean _that_ man-made dirt track?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, pointing at the road he spotted yesterday as he performed a full reverse out of the shed so that the bumper of their vehicle was facing directly north. After a few seconds fiddling with the gear stick, it jerked into movement – speeding forwards and causing clumps of mud to flick up from the large wheels.

"That's the one," Grace winced as they went over a large bump in the road. "Can't you slow down?"

"Why go slow?" Alfie said with a grin. "This thing is designed for off-road driving, I'm sure it can handle a few bumps in the road."

"If we end up crashing, I'm going to murder you." Grace said sourly, leaning backwards in her chair and remained absorbed in their map and compass however whenever Alfie did something a little reckless, she would become the typical backseat driver and chide him for his mistakes.

Eventually, the makeshift road led into an area of jungle and it became trickier for Alfie to navigate. He would have to battle the steering wheel in order to keep the 4x4 in line. There were steeper climbs and narrower gaps that he would have to figure out a way past without coming too close to the dangerous drop on the other side. In his peripheral, he saw Grace holding onto the sides of the vehicle for dear life as they squeezed through. The roar of the engine disturbed a nearby tribe of monkeys where they had been resting in the trees.

Alfie stared as the creatures screeched and rushed through the treetops above them. He hadn't seen anything like that except at a zoo and it was weird watching them. "I hope there are no tigers around in this area," he gulped as the thought occurred to him. "I refuse to be cat food."

Grace rolled her eyes, though she looked nervous herself. "The instructors wouldn't send us off to a place where it's invested with dangerous animals," she huffed, her nose then wrinkled with something akin to disgust. "Besides, there won't be many around if there is – the Malaysian tiger has been classified as endangered. Poachers use their bones for medicine and tiger meat is popular in the domestic market – it's just horrible, really."

Alfie shuddered at the thought. "All the poachers care about is money, anything else is just a source to exploit," he said, remembering a documentary he'd watched once with his parents about the matter. "There are charities and stuff but it's still not enough."

His partner nodded. "There's an organisation called MYCAT, stands for Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers, they have a hotline set up for people to call if they spot any poachers in the area and even do citizen patrols into danger zones just to try and stop it from happening," she told him and Alfie found himself listening intently. "When I leave CHERUB, I think I want to try and help organisations like MYCAT rescue as many animals as I can. Or at least, donate lots of money towards it."

Alfie smiled. "That's a good plan."

"What about you?" she said with sudden intrigue. "What do you think you might do after you leave CHERUB?"

"I don't know really," he frowned in thought, pondering the question. "I want to go to university I think, though what one I don't know. I might even do something similar to what my dad did, like make video games and stuff. But, at this age, you really can't decide what exactly happens to you when you get older. Something might change my mind, who knows? When I'm like sixteen, I might suddenly want to become a wrestler."

Grace snorted with laughter. "You, a wrestler?" she said. "As if."

"I could be," Alfie feigned hurt. "I could end up being the most famous wrestler ever known –"

"Or the most famous embarrassment ever known."

"Hey!" he furrowed his eyebrows. "Kill my dreams, why don't ya?"

She rolled her eyes, though she had a small smile on her face. "Just keep your eyes on the road, you dimwit," Grace said. "I don't know why I let you drive; I must have a death wish or something."

In total the 4x4 jeep lasted around two and a half hours before it began to slow as the last drops of petrol were drained from the tank. Alfie decided to park it in a small gap within the trees just less than a mile away from where they were supposed to cross the river. They admitted that the jeep had probably saved them a lot of time and their walk to the crossing point didn't seem to take long at all.

But when they got to the said-crossing point, they were torn between swimming across or climbing over the jutting rocks spread out across the length of the river. "What do you think would be the safest?"

"If we swim across, it will be a lot safer but it will take more time so maybe climbing?"

"We saved most of our time with the jeep, so it won't matter if it takes longer to swim across if it ensures out safety," Grace countered. "It doesn't look too deep and I'm pretty sure our packs are waterproof, we can change into dry clothes once we're across."

Alfie couldn't help but agree with Grace. If they swam across, it prevented any unnecessary accidents that they might've faced whilst climbing on those jagged and fairly damp rocks. Despite the fact that they had climbed similarly formed rocks at campus, there were no instructors this time to save them if something went wrong.

So they began wading forwards until the water got too deep that they could no longer touch the bottom. There was a current working against them as they swam and gave Alfie an idea. He made Grace stop at a nearby jutting rock and then pulled out the rope with the hook that they had used from the ravine. Alfie hooked it around one of his belt loops and then gave Grace the other end. "I'll swim first to the other side, and if I get pulled off stream you can pull me back towards you," he explained. "Then I'll do the same when you cross."

Grace looked pleasantly surprised. "Good thinking." she said.

Alfie smirked. "I do try."

Without a second thought, he plunged back into the water and ordered his legs and arms to keep paddling forwards against the strong current. His muscles burned painfully, but he tried his best to ignore it and internally thanked the doctor for placing him on a strict diet otherwise he would've never made it across. He used a few stray rocks to give himself a boost and breathed a sigh of relief when his knees touched the ground again. Alfie tugged himself back onto dry land and waved for Grace to start swimming over.

However, Grace didn't have to put in as much effort as he did because he helped pull her to the embankment with the rope.

He slumped onto the ground once Grace was finally over onto the other side and he remained that way as she began to rummage through her pack for some dry and clean clothes. He did the same, after finally coaxing himself to sit up again.

In no time at all they had themselves changed, collected more rainwater for their canteens and began to trek up the mountainside.


	21. POACHERS

**21\. POACHERS**

Despite their hats that were meant to protect them from the sun, they still felt its scorching heat as they clambered up the side of the mountain. Some of the trees took the brunt of the rays, but they soon found themselves struggling to continue and it wasn't even midday. "There must be an easier way up this stupid mountain," Alfie complained, gulping down some of his water. "This is killing me."

Grace tutted at him, her face was bright red from the heat and she looked closed to giving up. "They didn't make it so it'll be a walk in the park," she replied, and then unfolded the map again. "Come on, we only have a few miles until we reach the top. You said your briefing read that there's a boat up there we have to use."

"Yeah," he nodded. "It said that we have to sail the boat down the river, hike six more miles until we reach checkpoint three."

"Then we have to keep going," she told him. "We're so almost there –"

But Alfie wasn't listening at this point; instead his ears had zoomed in on another sound that hadn't been there before. It was something other than the chirping of birds and the rustling of the wind through the leaves – instead it was a now rumbling sound, like the engine of a car. He furrowed his eyebrows and looked at Grace. "Do you hear that?" he asked.

She tilted her head to the side and listened for a while, and then nodded. "It sounds like the 4x4 we used earlier," she told him. "But nobody is supposed to be up here except us."

"Maybe it's the instructors," Alfie suggested. "Come to check up on us."

Grace shook her head. "They check up on us using the electronic wristbands, the only reason they might be trying to find us up here is if something happened to Amanda or Hugo," she said. "Maybe they've been injured or something."

"Should we go and look?" he asked, pointing down the slope at the dusty road.

"Let's be cautious though," she replied. "Let's leave our packs here just in case it isn't the instructors and we need to leg it."

Her saying that made Alfie nervous but he complied, leaving his pack next to Grace's in an alcove of a tree and then following her down the slope towards the road. They had initially thought of using the road that winds around the mountainside to walk on but figured that going straight upwards would be the most effective way of travelling quickly. Their boots crunched on dead leaves and gnarled undergrowth as they walked, stopping a few metres away from the road and tucking themselves behind a tree.

"Who else could it be?" he questioned as the rumble of an engine got louder.

Grace shrugged. "I don't know," she replied. "But if it's not the instructors and they saw two random kids out this far in a Malaysian jungle they're going to start asking questions. Maybe call the authorities and there ends up being a huge search party for us – that's not going to look good is it? They'll have to call our whole training off and I'll-be-damned if I have to repeat this process again."

"Right," he nodded. "So it's best to be cautious."

A few minutes later, a battered looking dark green Jeep Wrangler roared to a stop in the middle of the road. Alfie knew right away that this wasn't the instructors from the car alone; it was completely different to the ones they had used. A middle-aged Malaysian man got out of the driver's seat, followed by two others. Their clothes were mostly camouflage, with the hopes of blending in with the surroundings around them. "What the hell," Alfie muttered. "They definitely aren't the instructors."

"No," Grace pursed her lips, looking as if she knew exactly who they were. "They're not."

Before he could ask Grace what she knew, the men brought out something that made Alfie's heart drop. After going through gruelling weapon lessons in the training compound, he knew what an assault rifle looked like. Between the three of them, there were two guns and Alfie had a horrible feeling why they needed them.

"Poachers?" he whispered and Grace nodded, gritting her teeth. "What could they possibly want in this area?"

"I don't know, anything that'll get them a bit of cash I suppose."

The driver of the Jeep Wrangler said something to the other two in Malay, he pointed to the car and then at the jungle behind them. One of the men nodded, folded his arms and leant up against the car whilst the other two, armed with assault rifles, began heading into the jungle. "So he's standing guard whilst they go out and shoot harmless animals." Grace growled.

"At least we know it's not the instructors," Alfie said. "We should –"

"Attack and steal their weapons," his partner interrupted.

" _What_?" Alfie swivelled his head towards her, his eyes widening. "Are you insane? They've got guns Grace, that's practically suicide. We should just continue up the mountain and get the boat as planned, there's nothing we can do now."

But Grace remained stubborn. "I'm not going to sit around while some low-lives think they have the right to illegally take the lives of endangered animals," she said, resolutely. "If we take the first guy by surprise, they'll be two of them and two of us. We steal their assault rifles and then drive the car to the top of the mountain and get the boat back down again."

He couldn't believe this; Grace had always seemed like the rational type and now she was suggesting something like this. "Grace," he said, slowly. "Think about this, even if we take out the guy guarding the car – then what? The other two have guns and will shoot us as soon as they see us coming."

"This is something we've been trained for," Grace narrowed her eyes. "I'm going to do it, whether you want to or not. I'm not going to sit down and just let this happen."

Alfie was at a loss for what to do. He knew he couldn't just let Grace go and attack armed men on her own, trained or not trained, there is no way she would be able to get herself out of that one. This was a terrible idea but what else could he do? "Okay fine," he said with a sigh, his heart pounding in his chest. "Give me the plan, and we'll go from there."

A few minutes later, Alfie found himself crouched behind a tree closer to the road with two packs slung over his shoulder. The man standing guard was still leaning against the car, occasionally shooting glances up and down the road. Seconds later, Grace came stumbling out from the undergrowth, her face streaming with tears.

"Please help me," she said and the man spun around, his mouth agape. "M-my friend, he's been hurt really badly and I need some help."

The man probably didn't speak any English, but knew that a crying girl was no threat. He stepped towards Grace, his hands awkwardly hovering over her shoulders whilst he casted several nervous glances back in the direction of where his friends had disappeared to. "Anda baik?" Alfie heard the man ask, but Grace just shrugged and shook her head before bawling loudly again.

Alfie took this as his chance to strike. Hiding both of their packs behind a tree, he rushed out of his cover and threw a punch he had learnt from physical training.

His fist hit the man's squishy temple before the Malaysian could fully contemplate what was happening. He stumbled backwards, grasping at his face just as Grace performed a roundhouse kick into the other side of his head. The man groaned, fell to his knees and then fell headfirst onto the ground, and didn't move again. "Yep," Alfie nodded. "The dude is out cold."

"I'd almost feel bad if he wasn't helping to kill animals," Grace said, and then pointed back from where Alfie had come from. "Drag him over there, if his friends come back and see him like that they'll know something's up and probably leg it."

Alfie grabbed onto the man's legs and dragged him towards the trees, dumping his body into a half a metre ditch in the ground. He checked the man's pockets for the car keys, but couldn't find them.

"The other guy must have them." he said.

"That's okay," Grace nodded and began moving in the direction of the other poachers. "Once we've knocked them out, we can take them off him and make a run for it. We'll try and take them down one by one, that way we have less of a chance of getting caught."

"I still think this is a terrible idea," Alfie shook his head. "One small slip-up and we could get shot."

"Then don't slip-up."

They headed into the trees and ducked once they caught the sight of one of the poachers coming towards them, his assault rifle was hung around his neck and he looked ticked off at something. "Bodoh," he muttered to himself and paused when he saw that his friend wasn't standing by the car where they left him. "Danish?" he called out. As expected, nobody replied and that made him more nervous.

The man went to turn around when they sprung.

Alfie wrapped his arms around the man's neck whilst Grace caught him with a brutal jab that burst open his lip. The man staggered back just as Alfie tried to reach down and grab onto the assault rifle. The sudden jolt made his hands slip on the trigger and a loud BANG echoed through the air, scattering several nearby birds in fright. Thankfully, Grace had been well away from the poacher when the gun went off and remained unscathed enough crack the man's jaw with an uppercut.

Alfie jumped away just as the man fell back onto the floor.

Grace snatched up the assault rifle and aimed it towards the man's chest, freezing him in place. She looked up at Alfie in a panic. "We're going to have to run," she said. "That gunshot must've alerted the other guy."

He leaned down and unhooked a pair of car keys from the man's belt. "I think we've done enough damage to them. You get the packs; I'll start the car up."

Just as he said this, a gunshot whistled just beside Alfie's head and his heart jolted. The bullet thudded into the trunk of a tree, just a metre away from where he was standing. They turned and saw the third guy, rushing towards them with his assault rifle pointed directly at them. "Grace run!" he exclaimed, grabbing onto her shoulder and tugging her back towards the Jeep Wrangler.

Grace fired two warning shots that sent the man ducking for cover and they sprinted as fast as they could towards the car.

Alfie jumped into the driver's side and plunged the keys into the ignition whilst Grace grabbed their packs and bundled them into the back before diving inside. As soon as his partner's body landed on the seats, he jammed his foot down on the accelerator and the jeep screeched into action. Dust spun up from under the wheel like something from a movie and Alfie had to use all his strength to keep the steering-wheel from spinning out of control.

There was another gunshot but nothing hit them as they sped up the mountainside. Grace reached over to slam the side-door shut and they both sat in silence for a while, just listening to the sound of the engine rumbling and their deep intakes of breath.

Inside his chest, his heart was hammering like nothing ever before and gradually; the adrenaline was beginning to wear off. He had been a mere metre away from getting shot in the head and his brain was struggling to process what had just happened. They had done what Grace had wanted, taken down the poachers and stolen at least one of their weapons and source of transport, leaving them stranded in the middle of a jungle. He couldn't really believe it.

Eventually, Grace broke the silence with a giggle. "That was the most craziest thing I think I've ever done."

"Probably won't be the last," Alfie laughed shakily.


	22. SUCCESS

**22\. SUCCESS**

Alfie and Grace made it to the last and final checkpoint feeling nervous. They didn't know whether the instructors had figured out their little adventure with the poachers from the day before. They had decided to abandon the car at the top of the mountain, and take the double kayak that had been waiting for them down the river as they had been initially planning to do in the first place. It was unlikely that the poachers would've ended up reporting the incident to the police seeing as they were not meant to be in the area either.

Despite reminding themselves of this several times throughout the day, they still couldn't help but feel slightly nervous about the prospect of meeting with the instructors again.

They arrived at a large glade within the jungle, situated in front of a what-looked-like a thirty metre high cliff face soaring overhead. They spotted the exhausted looking Hugo and Amanda; sat on a log chatting away like it was a casual social call until they noticed that they had arrived.

Alfie thought it was weird seeing their faces again after spending four days on his own.

"Took you long enough," Hugo grinned. "We've been here for twenty minutes; the instructors are going to be arriving soon."

"We got slightly lost, it took us a while to get back on track again," Grace explained, before letting out a sigh and plopping herself down beside the other pair. "So why do you think we're here?"

Amanda scoffed. "Well it's pretty obvious," she pointed upwards at the very top of the cliff face; Alfie managed to spot four plastic wrapped grey packages at the very top. "There are our grey shirts, their probably going to make us climb to the top and retrieve them, there's always some random miniature task at the end of these things."

"Oh fantastic," Alfie said bitterly. "Of course the task has to do with heights."

Hugo smirked at him. "Not gonna chicken out are you?" he asked. "I wouldn't mind having an extra shirt to take home with me."

"Yeah right," he countered. "In your dreams are you getting your hands on my shirt."

The boy raised his eyebrows. "It's not your shirt yet, is it?"

"But it's going to be."

Around another twenty-minutes later, the two jeeps that had dropped them off four days ago arrived in the clearing from a narrow dirt road. Mr Hayward climbed out of the first car with a grin. "Judging from your expressions, you lovelies have already figured out what you're supposed to do now?" when they all nodded, his voice turned firm. "Well get going then. The harnesses you need are hanging down waiting for you; you won't need any help putting them on. As soon as you've grabbed those grey T-shirts from the top, you've passed your training and will become fully qualified agents so chop-chop."

Hugo, Amanda and Grace all rushed forwards to grab their harnesses and began strapping them on. Alfie reluctantly trailed behind them, slotting himself in and making sure every bit of the harness was extremely tight and safe before following the rest of them up the cliff face. "Don't worry about the height Alf," Grace told him from around a metre above. "Just keep your eyes focused on that T-shirt. You climbed across a ravine; this should be like a piece of cake to you."

But the way down between the gap of the ravine was shorter than this however he found himself nodding at the encouraging words. He lunged upwards, grabbing onto the nearest crevice, desperately trying to ignore the telltale sign of his stomach doing somersaults. But Alfie wasn't going to let his fear get in the way of passing his training after all they've been through to get here.

Alfie gritted his teeth and continued climbing, reminding himself not look down until he had made it to the top and he reached up and grasped onto the CHERUB shirt in disbelief. Alfie had done it. He had made it. He was an agent.

"Finally," Grace gasped beside him. "I've finally passed –"

"I'm putting this on as soon as we get down." Hugo said eagerly, jumping backwards and abseiling his way to the bottom.

"Well done guys." Amanda smiled, before following shortly behind her partner.

Alfie practically felt himself blanch at the sight and his knuckles were turning white from where he was grabbing onto one of the crevices painfully tight. A familiar wave of nausea washed over him and he felt the world spin dangerously as he stared at the distant dots of the instructors down below. Grace put a hand on his shoulder, snapping him out of the panicked state he was in.

"You haven't got much left to go now Alfie, all you need to do is climb down and I'll keep by your side," she told him. "Just start off slow."

"Alright," he gulped. Alfie grabbed hold of his rope and took a gentle step backwards; slamming his feet against the wall once he'd dropped a few metres.

"That's it," Grace said encouragingly. "Keep doing that until the bottom, I'm right here."

So Alfie did the same thing again and again until he was doing it without worrying about potentially falling and killing himself. This routine continued until his foot shakily touched the floor and the nausea he had been previously feeling, went away. He hugged the grey shirt to his chest, gratefully. "Congratulations guys," Mr Hayward gave them all such a genuine smile that it gave all of them a shock. "You're official CHERUB agents and qualified for missions."

~oOo~

Their flight back to London from Kuala Lumpur International Airport was not until the next day, so the now agents had time to kill back at the hotel whilst the instructors indulged themselves in the bar downstairs.

They all piled into one room, eager to discuss what they had encountered during their four days of trekking through the jungle alone. "We came across a few monkeys," Hugo told them, as he scooped a handful of ice gems that they had taken from the mini-bar into his mouth. "They didn't really bother us though, so long as we weren't bothering them."

"Same with us," Grace nodded. "We didn't come across many animals surprisingly."

"We saw a Malaysian tiger," Amanda said enthusiastically. "It was so beautiful; I'd never seen one that close up before. It just came and went, didn't seem to notice us."

Alfie and Grace shot glances at each other, pondering on whether they should tell them about their run-in with the poachers. "Well, we didn't come across any tigers," Alfie said. "But we did come across some people in the jungle whilst we were climbing the mountain."

"Really?" Amanda asked. "What were they doing?"

"Poaching," Grace replied, bitterly. "You know, illegally going into the jungle to kill animals in order to sell their parts on the market. They had assault rifles and everything."

Hugo gulped down his food and raised an eyebrow in Grace's direction. "You went after them, didn't you?" he said and when Grace nodded, he sighed. "I figured, you were always going on about that for as long as I've known you, I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to do something like that though."

"It wasn't stupid," Grace retorted, defensively. "We took them down, left them stranded in the jungle. It's what they deserved. Right, Alfie?"

They turned towards him and he froze. "Well, I uh didn't exactly encourage the idea –"

"You mean to tell me," Amanda said, suddenly catching onto what they were saying. "That both of you, went after armed poachers. Poachers who had _guns_ and could've probably shot you both dead in seconds."

"Yeah, pretty much," Alfie nodded, leaning backwards. "Stole their car too."

Hugo seemed intrigued by this. "Oh, what car was it?"

Alfie shrugged. "Nothing special, just a battered old Jeep Wrangler."

Amanda looked at Grace. "Grace, if the instructors found about that you'd be in serious trouble –"

"You think I don't know that?" Grace retorted, folding her arms and pouting. "We were careful about it, we planned out everything just to make sure nothing went wrong and neither of us got killed so what's the big deal. We saved some poor endangered animals getting shot up by some heartless scumbags."

" _And_ I almost got shot in the head." Alfie added.

Grace shot him a look. "You're not helping my case here."

"Well, it's in the past now so there's nothing we can do about it," Hugo said and lying backwards on his back so that he was staring up at the ceiling. "Let's hope that you learn something from it, like not running into unnecessary danger – we're CHERUB agents now, if we did something like that on a mission it probably wouldn't go down too well with the ethics committee."

"I wouldn't think twice of putting my cherub career on the line if it was for a good cause," Grace told them. "If I know I have the power to make a difference, I'll do it."

Alfie scoffed. "I don't doubt that for a second."

Once Hugo and Amanda finally disappeared off to their room to catch up on some well needed sleep, Alfie hopped inside the ensuite bathroom and closed the door. He stripped off his clothes and turned on the shower, reminding himself to never take hot water for granted again as he stepped under the spray. Afterwards, he changed into some clean pyjamas and then looked at himself in the mirror. His appearance caught him off guard.

He was almost completely different from the boy he had been when he first arrived on campus. He wasn't so scrawny anymore, his muscles were lot larger than before and he was pretty sure he'd grown taller since he'd started his basic training one-hundred days ago.

The only thing he didn't like was how long his hair was now. His black hair was in desperate need of a cut and he kept having to brush it out of his eyes. Getting his hair cut was definitely first on the list of things to do when he got back. A knock on the door jumped him. "What the hell are you doing in there?" Grace complained. "I wanna have a shower before our flight tomorrow so hurry your butt up."

"I'm just coming," he called back with a roll of his eyes.

Alfie quickly gathered his clothes, opened the door and headed back into the bedroom and over to his bed. Grace wrinkled her nose when she saw him. "You need a haircut."

"Go and have your shower," he retorted. "Care about your own appearance, not mine."

She put her hands on her hips. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you still look like you've been rolling around in the undergrowth," Alfie grinned, burrowing himself down underneath his duvet. He felt a pillow whoosh over his head and then door slam shut. "Missed me!" he shouted.


	23. RETURN

**23\. RETURN**

Despite having slept through most the flight home from Malaysia, Alfie felt utterly drained when they returned back to campus but also felt an overwhelming sense of happiness at the prospect of getting his grey shirt. He had thanked Grace multiple times already for getting him through the last task of the training and repaid her by helping move her belongings to her new room on his floor. They spent most of the afternoon going up and down the lifts, dragging plastic bags full of her stuff down the hallway and into the room.

After a while, he decided to leave Grace to gush about her new room and pick up the last of her things himself. He had just been loading the last two bags of stuff onto the back of a golf buggy from the junior block, when he was suddenly slammed against the wall.

"What the hell?" he complained and gulped when he saw who had pinned him.

Caitlyn Rosa, Grace's older sister, was now glaring down at him. She looked furious and Alfie felt it was best not to test his luck. "What's your intentions with my little sister?" the older girl demanded.

"Um," he swallowed the lump in his throat. "She's one of my friends here at campus and uh –"

"So you're not dating each other or anything?" she exclaimed.

Alfie shook his head frantically. "No, no way," he insisted. "Who said me and her were dating each other? I literally just met her before we started training; she's one of my best mates. I wouldn't try anything like that with her."

Caitlyn raised an eyebrow. "And, you're not just saying that because my fist is dangerously close to your face?"

"That's the truth," he claimed. "I swear."

"Then what are you doing with all her stuff then?" she asked, gesturing to the packed golf buggy that he been planning to ride across campus towards the main building.

"I'm helping her move into her new room," he told her. "She's too distracted by it at the moment, so I decided to just bring the rest to her so she doesn't have to. I mean, I'm not stealing it if that's what you think – that's kind of creepy if I'm being honest."

After a few agonising seconds, Caitlyn cracked a smile and released him. "Aren't you a little gentleman then?"

Alfie let his shoulders slump in relief. "I-I guess," he said.

She slapped him on the back, nudging him back towards the golf buggy again. "Keep doing what you're doing then," she said, and then was about to walk away when she stopped and looked at him. "Oh, and Alfie?"

"Yeah?" he looked up.

"If you end up hurting my sister in anyway," she said sweetly with feigned innocence. "You'll soon find my fist crushing your nose."

He winced as the image popped into his head. "I'll keep that in mind."

And with that, the girl sauntered off, leaving him generally frightened for his wellbeing. Just as she disappeared around the corner, Hugo carrying several of his own belongings came out from the junior building with a surprisingly sympathetic expression on his face. "You know," he said, gesturing in the direction of where Caitlyn had left. "It's things like that which make me glad I'm gay."

Alfie shook his head. "I don't know where she got the idea that me and Grace are going out from."

Hugo suddenly looked meek. "Um, I may have accidentally started that rumour. You have no idea how fast gossip spreads around campus."

He sighed. "Fabulous, that's just great."

~oOo~

He hadn't seen Harry, Harriet, Frankie or Scott yet but he had guessed that they were probably either attending their daytime classes or on missions. However he did get a well done from his handler Allison Cain when he first arrived so that was okay. It was late in the evening when he finally heard that familiar knock on his door before Harriet and Frankie piled themselves into the room.

"I knew it," Harriet grinned at Frankie as they stretched themselves across Alfie's bed. "I told you he would make it, now you owe me five pounds, matey."

"Damn," Frankie mumbled, though her dark brown eyes sparkled with mirth. "That's a quarter of my allowance already."

Alfie furrowed his eyebrows. "Wait; hold on...you two made a bet on me? What the hell?"

Harriet shrugged, non-apologetically. "It's hard not to, too good of an opportunity to miss. But hey, that doesn't matter now does it? You passed your basic training, I won five pounds and Frankie can add this loss to her already long list of failures. All is good, life is good."

He shook his head. "So where's Harry, anyway? Is he off his punishments now?"

"Yeah," Harriet nodded. "But he's been swamped with homework so he barely has had any free-time recently; he's available for missions now though."

"He might be okay for missions," Frankie pointed out. "But that doesn't mean he'll get any of the decent ones. He'll probably be stuck with the boring security missions for the majority of his time here because of what he ended up doing."

Harriet looked as though this didn't affect her. "That's what he deserves, I guess," she turned towards him. "Anyway, who was your partner for training? Tell us the details."

"At first I ended up with some dimwit called Jake Matthews who for the love of God was the most irritating person I've ever met, but he ended up quitting during the first day," he told them. "Then Hayward paired me up with Grace Rosa –"

"Oh hell, how did you survive?" Frankie asked. "I heard rumours that she is just as bad as her sister."

Alfie scoffed. "She's nowhere near, she was a great partner and I really doubt I would've passed training without her. She's moved onto our floor so you'll be seeing her more I expect."

Harriet wiggled her eyebrows. "You _like_ her."

"Oh, don't you start," Alfie complained. "I've already had Caitlyn Rosa try to chew my head off because Hugo couldn't keep his bloody mouth shut."

"Oh yeah," Frankie giggled. "I think I heard _that_ rumour too."

"It's not true," Alfie insisted. "Me and Grace are friends, a girl and boy can be friends you know."

"Totally." Harriet nodded.

"Absolutely." Frankie enthused.

He sighed.

~oOo~

Thankfully, before Alfie was to start his schoolwork and begin his new timetable; all four of the recently passed trainees had a week off to themselves. Alfie spent this time rereading most of his books and catching up on the TV he missed during his one-hundred days in isolation whilst doing the occasional ten laps around the athletics track out of boredom.

It seemed like mere days ago that he had been sat in that hospital with the police officer, running his mind to the brink of exhaustion as he thought what his life would be like now that his dad was gone. And now he's suddenly a trained child agent working for a secret organisation within the British Intelligence Service. It was still a difficult piece of information to digest.

Dressed in his CHERUB uniform and grey T-shirt in his handler's office, he stared down at his timetable with disbelief. It wasn't the six hours of lessons or the two hours of homework required every night that surprised him; it was the fact that he had to apparently teach younger kids history. Alfie looked up and stared at his handler sceptically. "I have to teach a bunch of red shirts...history?" he gaped. "What am I supposed to teach them exactly? Ancient history? Modern history? I don't –"

"You'll be given a list detailing all the topics they've already covered and you can go from there. All cherubs have to do some form of teaching in the subject that they're strongest at, and that is undoubtedly history for you," Allison explained. "You've been through basic training, teaching young kids a subject shouldn't be too difficult I expect."

"Depends on how well the kids behave," Alfie mumbled. "I'm doing GCSE History, as well? Don't I have to do that when I'm Year 10 or 11?"

Allison shook her head. "You've shown the perfect qualities to be able to handle GCSE History and if you pass, A-Level will be available to you. But as well as GCSE History, you'll be entered for GCSE Maths and English," she pointed to the mentioned topics on Alfie's sheet. "Along with Physics, Biology, Chemistry and French. Getting those examinations over and done with should help you considerably in the future."

" _A-Level_?" he asked. "At eleven-years old? No wonder people think we're some kind of child geniuses, I mean...that's nuts."

"Everything on your timetable has been fully discussed with me and the chief handler – if we didn't think you'd be able to do it, we wouldn't have signed you up for them. All cherubs, when they're recruited take an intelligence test. Judging by all these lessons I'm probably right in assuming that you scored above average?" she asked and when Alfie nodded, she continued. "Then I can promise you that all these lessons are perfectly within your capabilities otherwise you wouldn't have been assigned them. You'll start this Monday, and maybe a mission will come along for you in one or two months at the least."

~oOo~

When he got back to his room that evening, he sure enough found a small list of topics that his soon-to-be students had already been learning from an old teacher. He read out the words scribbled onto the piece of note paper and thought of potential subjects.

 _Ancient Roman History and Mythology_

 _Ancient Greek History and Mythology_

 _Mesopotamia_

Alfie figured that they probably wouldn't begin to learn about the more recent history such as the world wars until they were at least about to begin basic training. So that won't be needed until a long while yet.

He racked his brain until finally, he had an idea. Ancient Egypt. Egypt was full to the brim with interesting and mysterious history to be told, it wasn't just about pyramids and mummies. That's what he could do; he reminded himself to ask Allison about the idea tomorrow.

As Alfie fell backwards onto his bed, his mind camp up with multiple possibilities of how he could present the lessons to make them more appealing. There were plenty of kids fictional books he could try to use in order to encourage them more. The books had to have not that much writing, not unless he wanted to bore the kids to death. Pictures always seemed to be the most effective also.

The more he thought about the prospect of teaching, the more he seemed to like the idea.


	24. LAST

**24\. LAST**

 _A month later..._

With Scott away on a mission, Alfie had to find another way to spend his weekends without the PS2 during the last month or so. His weekends were now mostly spent out in the town buying more books or investigating the contents of the memory sticks he'd required from his dad's draw. Most of them were old games he'd developed; others consisted of much more interesting content such as the coding for an advanced spyware programme and various anti-virus software.

He'd stopped at an unfinished computer video game that his father had been planning to release via his own company KitchenGames – the computing language used was JavaScript and after a brief refresher, Alfie had begun to work on finishing the base of the game.

But most of the time after lessons, were spent doing the recommended two hours of homework just to make sure he didn't end up on cleaning duty as well as planning out the lessons he needed to teach to the red shirts. They had begun exploring the predynastic and early dynastic periods along with the most famous pharaohs such as Narmer, King Menes and Djoser.

However, despite enjoying some of the subjects he did, he admitted that the work was annoyingly exhausting. Along with the teaching hours, he had French, Maths, English, Science and his own GCSE History lessons. Which is why he was stuck sat at his desk, writing out an essay as to why Richard III made himself King of England in 1483. He had just been describing that the long gone King was often detailed as power hungry when several shouts from out in the corridor caught his attention.

He probably would've left it for someone else to deal with it if he didn't recognise the typical voices of Harriet and her twin brother Harry Ward. Alfie rolled his eyes in annoyance, he had hoped that the two had sorted their problems out by now but obviously he had been wrong. Walking out of his room, he was greeted by the not-so-lovely view of Harriet angrily slamming her brother against the wall. Both of their faces were contorted with fury and Alfie was generally worried that they were going to murder each other. "Guys, come on –"

His protests were cut off by Harry as he swung a punch at Harriet. He let out a growl. "Back off," he said. "This has nothing to do with you."

"It does if you're going to end up killing each other, now cut it out mate."

As he expected, none of them even remotely listened to what he was saying so he decided to take a stronger approach. He stepped forwards and shoved Harry so that he was ripped out of Harriet's grasp. Harry looked up to him in surprise when he barked. "I said cut it out, do you want another few months on cleaning duty? Do you even want a decent mission?"

"Why don't you just go back to your room and let us deal with _our_ problems?"

"Oh yes of course," Alfie replied dryly. "Because you're dealing with your problems so reasonably."

Harry, still blind in his little mist of anger, let out another growl and almost took Alfie by surprise as he threw a punch towards his face. If he hadn't just gone through basic training, this would've surely done some damage. He managed to dodge out of the way just in time, causing Harry's fist to hit the wall instead. There was a sickening crunch and Harry let out a howl of pain, cradling his hand to his chest.

Just as this was taking place, Allison Cain and the chief handler Meryl Spencer rushed around the corner to investigate the noise. They had been just in Allison's office and now the woman's face was flushed with rage. "My office," she snapped. "Now."

~oOo~

Despite ending up with Harriet and Harry in their handler's office with Allison Cain _and_ the chief handler Meryl Spencer leering down at them, Alfie didn't regret breaking up the fight. If he had just left them to get on with it, there was a high chance that their punishments would've been a lot more severe than now. But the pair had obviously broken out of that haze of fury and were staring meekly at their shoes.

"This is absolutely unacceptable. You're supposed to be fully trained cherub agents, not a bunch of typical schoolchildren. Both of you are a disgrace and whatever this feud is going on between you two needs to be sorted immediately or I suspect your suspensions from CHERUB will be imminent." Allison snapped.

Meryl crossed her arms. "The pair of you are just wasting your potential away on something so insignificant when you could be using your knowledge for good use," she shook her head, and her expression softened slightly. "Harry, Harriet – I know you've always had some difficulty in getting along, but this needs to stop because one day, you could see yourselves getting kicked off of campus permanently and I know how much CHERUB means to the both of you."

The twins wouldn't meet neither Allison's nor Meryl's eyes.

Then Allison turned to Alfie with a sneer. "And you Alfie? I would've thought you were better than this, squabbling around in the corridors is no way to use what you've learnt –"

"Alfie had nothing to do with this," Harriet interrupted Allison firmly. "He was trying to stop us and I'm glad he did because we probably would've ended up seriously hurting each other. Right, Harry?"

Harry nodded with a stoic expression, he had his hand wrapped in temporary bandages that Allison had given him and Alfie felt slightly guilty for not trying to stop the punch in a safer way. It had to be broken, he had heard a crunch. "Alfie, should by no means, be punished for something that is clearly all on us."

Both Allison and Meryl seemed just as taken aback as Alfie by this sudden truce between the pair of once-feuding twins. Allison seemed to be the first to recover, straightening up and wiping her face clean of emotions. "Then Alfie, I'll let you off with a simple warning this time but you two..." she shook her head. "Both of you are banned from going to CHERUB hostel this summer, a month's suspension from missions, three months worth of cleaning the mission preparation building and I think some anger management counselling with twenty-five laps of the athletics track will do you both some good."

Harriet gaped. "That's so unfair, we'll have to fit in our schoolwork as well –"

"Petty squabbles are not tolerated here, you're very well lucky I've not brought this to the attentions of the chairwoman where the chances of being kicked off of CHERUB are much higher so don't you dare talk to me about unfairness Harriet Ward," Allison said sternly, Harriet fell silent. "And for God's sake sort out your issues both of you, this pathetic fighting between you needs to end _now_. Is that understood?"

When they both mumbled their replies, Allison continued. "Harriet you can return to your room and I want you to remain there until your lessons start tomorrow. Harry I want you to do the same but only after you've visited medical and gotten that hand checked out," the pair nodded and Alfie went to leave alongside them when Allison spoke again. "Alfie, you'll be staying here for the time being."

Alfie caught Harry giving him a guilty look before disappearing outside into the hallway, the door sliding shut behind them. Once the door gave that resounding click, Allison slumped in her chair. "I'm so sorry about that," she told Meryl. "They've never usually gone that far as to hurt each other."

Meryl smiled. "Siblings will be siblings, unfortunately. The least we can do is discipline them for their actions and pray they get the message," and then she looked at Alfie with a quirked eyebrow. "It's a good thing that you mister didn't have a serious part in that muddle, otherwise I would've had seconds thoughts about recommending you for that mission controller."

Alfie gave a confused expression. "What mission controller?"

The handlers looked at each other. "We had just been discussing what potential candidates might be better suited for an upcoming mission a controller called Gennie Thomas has been working on," Allison explained, beginning to rummage through her draws. "I suggested your name and Meryl agrees, but that's only if you decide you want to take it."

His handler placed what looked like a yellow swipe card onto the desk and slid it across to where Alfie was sat.

"I thought you said I wouldn't be able to go on a mission until at least two months."

"I said within one or two months," Allison said as Alfie picked up the mission preparation card and inspected it curiously. "You'll be expected to meet her and another agent Friday morning at ten; you've been excused from lessons until you return."

~oOo~

Alfie spent the rest of the evening completing the rest of his history essay until he finished and decided to go see how Grace was keeping up with her own work. He knocked once before strolling inside where a fresh out of the shower Grace was brushing her hair in her pyjamas. A season of a new superhero TV show displayed itself across her screen. The villain of the day was a man who could transform himself into a toxic gas and suffocate his victims.

"If someone had that power in real life, they could get away with every murder possible," he said. "No traces of DNA would be found at all."

Grace looked at him. "Good thing that that's not possible then."

"You know what power I would have? Invisibility," Alfie smirked. "You can sneak up on your victim without them even knowing and then BAM, they're dead and you can't get caught because no CCTV can actually capture you on footage."

"But then there's still the chances of getting caught via DNA sampling," Grace countered. "They might not have captured you on camera, but if they even get the slightest form of DNA, then they have a reason to suspect you."

"But they would need more than DNA evidence to form a full conviction," he shook his head. "Anyway – aside from the geekiness, I didn't come here for that. I wanted to tell you that I've been offered a mission."

Over the last month, Grace had gotten a string of small missions dotted around the UK and all of them had been quite successful. Alfie was beginning to doubt ever getting one himself until today and by the look on Grace's face as he dangled the mission preparation card from his hand, she had similar thoughts.

She smirked. "Finally," Grace laughed. "I was beginning to worry for you there. Hugo and Amanda have both already been on missions; actually I think Hugo is on quite a large one right now."

"Don't remind me," Alfie muttered. "He'll probably won't stop rubbing it in when he comes back."

"Oh he will, there's no 'probably' about it. But you should concentrate on your mission for now, you never know, it might be a decent one," Grace told him. "I'll wish you luck now just in case I won't see you until it ends."

Alfie watched one more episode of the superhero show before bidding his goodnights to Grace and heading back to his room, feeling a lot more confident about the potential mission than he had before.


	25. BRIEFING

**25\. BRIEFING**

As requested, Alfie crossed campus towards the mission preparation building with the card Allison had given him grasped tightly in his hand. His mind was racing as to what he could have possibly been chosen for and surprised he'd even been considered at all. Guess the only way he would find out would be to actually go to the mission briefing.

He swiped himself in and was greeted by a banana-shaped corridor running its entire length with seemingly around twenty offices and special equipment rooms off the sides. The two most luxurious officers belonging to the senior mission controllers, he only knew Zara Asker out of the pair though as he looked around the place. Alfie didn't have to wait for long however because almost as soon as he stepped inside the building, a young woman with long blonde hair tugged up into a ponytail and square-framed glasses stepped outside one of the offices and met his gaze.

A kindly smile broke out across the woman's face as she held out her hand. "Alfie Swan – I wondered where you'd got to," Gennie Thomas nodded as Alfie reached out to shake. "It's nice to finally meet you."

"Finally?" Alfie asked confusedly.

"When I started planning for this mission, you had just only finished basic training," she explained. "I'm quite new to the job so I asked a few handlers for recommendations; Allison and Meryl spoke very highly of you."

"I'm obviously not great enough to be recruited on any recent missions," Alfie scoffed. "All of my friends who did basic training with me have already been on missions."

Gennie smirked. "All good things come to those who wait."

"I guess." Alfie mumbled.

Gennie gestured back towards her office door and Alfie followed her through, taking a seat in front of a large desk to which sat a laptop and two files. But Alfie wasn't the only agent in the office; there was an older girl dressed in a navy T-shirt and shorts. Alfie thought she looked around fourteen/fifteen-years-old with shoulder length blonde hair and brown eyes. She smiled at him as he walked in.

"Alfie, let me introduce you to your new sister – Karen Granger," Gennie said with a smile. "Karen, this is Alfie Swan, a new agent here at CHERUB."

Karen leaned over and smiled warmly at him, offering her hand. "Nice to meet you," she said. "Not too scared about your first mission, are you?"

They shook as he nodded. "A little bit," he told them embarrassingly.

Gennie shrugged. "It's only natural; I'd be concerned if you weren't at least a little nervous. It shows that you care – anyway," she passed along two files across the desk, towards them. "Take a read of this and tell me what you think."

 _**CLASSIFIED**_

 _MISSION BRIEFING FOR KAREN GRANGER & ALFIE SWAN_

 _THIS DOCUMENT IS PROTECTED WITH A RADIO_

 _FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION TAG._

 _ANY_ _ATTEMPT TO REMOVE IT FROM THE MISSION_

 _PREPARATION BUILDING WITH SET OFF AN ALARM._

 _DO NOT PHOTOCOPY OR MAKE NOTES._

 _UK firearm laws_

 _Firearm laws in the UK have been continually restricted since around the late nineteenth century. The very first 'right to bear arms' was brought about in 1689 and had been untouched until 1870 when the first licence was introduced for anyone who wanted to carry a gun outside their own home. Ever since then, more and more laws have been introduced that further limited the freedom of owning and possessing a gun._

 _The Firearms Act of 1968 consolidated the already existing laws brought about in 1920 and 1937 as well as giving the Home Office the right to set fees for shotgun licenses. But these laws were once again changed after two tragedies struck the UK only nine years apart. As a result of the Hungerford massacre in August 1987, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 was passed. This law banned semi-automatic and pump-action rifles, weapons that had fire explosive ammunition, short shotguns with magazines as well as elevated pump-action and self-loading rifles. It also made registration mandatory for shotguns which were required to be kept in secure storage._

 _Stricter controls were introduced after the 1998 killings in Dunblane, in which the Conservative government at the time drew up the legislation that banned handguns above .22 calibre. However when the Labour Party came to power after their general election victory, they introduced Firearms (Amendment) (No.2) Act 1997, which further outlawed .22s as well._

 _As a response to a series of high-profile shootings, the most recent law passed relating to firearms was the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006. This act made the manufacturing, importation or selling of realistic imitation guns an offence as well as doubling the maximum sentence for carrying an imitation gun to a total of twelve months and made it a crime to fire an air weapon beyond the boundary of any premise. This also had the additional law that increased the age limit for buying or possessing an air weapon from 17 to 18._

 _Alfred Albach_

 _Alfred 'Alfie' Albach was born on the 6th of January 1973 in Ingolstadt, Bavaria in Germany to a struggling family of five and was the youngest of three other brothers (Harvey, Markus and William). From a young age, Albach was always shown as bright and intelligent, surpassing most of his brothers; education wise. Albach's father, in search for more substantial work and recognising the potential of his youngest son, used up most of the income the family received and moved them to a small town in North Carolina, USA where Albach later attended school._

 _1991 – During his time in America, his parents opened a small antique/pawn shop in the hopes of obtaining a source of income and provide a safe home for their children. However, this plan was quickly dissolved in 1990, when they went bankrupt with lack of income and costly renovation schemes in the hopes to attract more customers. The Albach family was struggling to cope and eventually, the two youngest boys; William and Alfred resorted to crime in order to bring in some money. Alfred dropped out of school in 1991 and began to work selling and delivering drugs for a generous sum of money. Eventually he was caught and sentenced to jail for thirty months for being caught in possession of illegal drugs but refused to tell the local police department anything about the origins of these drugs._

 _1993 – After coming out of jail, Alfred moved in with his youngest brother Harvey in a medium sized apartment in the city of Charlotte, working a part-time job in order to get back on his feet again as well as attending weekly rehab sessions as requested by the police._

 _1995 – Alfred and his brother William applied for a VISA to the UK which was grudgingly accepted under the agreement that any crime committed by the pair, no matter how small, will result in them becoming extradited back to US. The brothers settled down in the coastal city of Southampton in the south of England and began to work for a small shipment company entitled Brizo at the docks. The pair became friendly with the elderly owner Mr Horace Noland and the man accordingly almost immediately took a liking to them both._

 _1996 – Alfred married his wife Hayley Messenger, further solidifying his citizenship in England._

 _1998 – The death of Horace Noland in the winter of 1998 came as quite a shock to the majority of the workers within his company. His will was released shortly after his death which accordingly left all of his shares and company to Alfred Albach when it was revealed that Mr Noland had no children or other potential heirs to pass his fortune onto. There was a small investigation into the causes of the man's death before it was eventually confirmed as 'natural' and the case was later closed._

 _The Brizo Company was later rebranded and soon name Alpheus with the appointment of Albach. The company began attracting the attentions of businesses local and even further and it was soon expanding to other parts of England with the opening of more warehouses._

 _2000 – Alfred's first child Devona Albach was born._

 _The shipment company was increasing in popularity but not fast enough for Alfred who made several attempts to improve the business such as purchasing bigger ships to export larger quantities of cargo. This payment took a considerable amount of money out of the overall Alpheus fund totals but still the company wasn't getting the amount of attention Albach wanted._

 _2003 – Hayden Albach, Alfred's final child is born._

 _2014 – The Alpheus Company's reputation drops even further when one of their ships containing expensive cargo, disappeared whilst crossing over the English Channel to France. The main Southampton-based Alpheus Warehouse accordingly lost communication with one of their smaller vessels and was unable to locate its whereabouts again. As well as causing a huge blow financially to the company from this event, companies began to turn away from using Alpheus to ship their merchandise across Europe._

 _To keep his company up and running, Albach made desperate grasps at money-saving schemes such as shutting down many warehouses across the country, leading to the redundancy of thousands of British workers. He also sold the majority of his smaller modern merchant ships but even with these attempts, the Alpheus Company appeared to be on the brink of bankruptcy._

 _Today – Many people, including the neighbouring shipment companies that also occupy the majority of Southampton Docks, were surprised by Alpheus' massive bounce back into the competition. Alfred rebranded the company again, returning the business to its original title of the Brizo Company. This random burst of fortune caught the attentions of the police and even more so when the company's ships were sighted on the coast of America when the business was supposed to be solely European based. Crime has began to skyrocket in the area, with there being several armed robberies occurring throughout the city as well as the increasing amount of arrests of people in possession of Class A drugs._

 _There is a suspicion that Albach has somehow resorted to illegally importing several items including firearms and drugs in order to increase his profit and effectively save his company._

 _Southampton Docks_

 _Southampton is the largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire, England and is situated approximately seventy-five miles south-west of London. It is home to one of the most major ports of England and is the closest city to the New Forest. It has a current estimate population of 254,651._

 _Out of all the important sections that Southampton is well known for, such as its popular city centre, train lines and airports, the city's most well known aspect is the docks. The first dock to be opened was in 1840 and was referred to as 'The Gateway to the Empire.'_

 _From 1904 to 2004, parts of the docks were shipbuilding yards which built and repaired ships used in the two World Wars and became a major employer within the city. Famous ships such as the RMS Titanic set sail from here and is the home port for many transatlantic passenger services operated by Cunard. The Blue Riband liner, are known for boats such as RMS Queen Mary and her running mate RMS Queen Elizabeth all made their home there. In 1968, Southampton Docks also became home to the flying boats of Imperial Airways. Southampton Container Terminals first opened in 1968 and has continued to expand._

 _Recent Armed Robberies and Rise of Class A Drugs_

 _A few weeks ago, four armed robberies took place all throughout Southampton ranging to local shops and even a small bank. When the CCTV footage was re-watched by the authorities they believe that the firearms used by the assailants are all currently prohibited in the UK._

 _There has also been a rise in the number of arrests of people in the possession of Class A drugs within the city. Drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy, heroin, LSD, methadone and methamphetamine has had an worrying escalating rise within the city, with all the possessions withholding information as to what and where the source is currently coming from._

 _Brief connections have been made between the robberies, the sudden rise of drugs in the city and the Brizo Company but it cannot be proved or backed up with the substantial evidence needed to form a full conviction against Alfred Albach and his brother._

 _THE CHERUB MISSION_

 _A female and male agent, between the preferred ages of fourteen/fifteen and eleven/twelve, will move into one of the suburbs in Southampton with mission controller Gennie Thomas and pose as her children. They will be required to attend Norwood Community College with the target of befriending DEVONA ALBACH and HAYDEN ALBACH in order to gather as much information as possible about Alfred Albach's sudden bounce back into the shipping business and rise to the top of most shipment companies in the area. With hopes that the evidence to be potentially required will be enough to give Albach the most probable jail sentence._

 _THE ETHICS COMMITTEE ACCEPTED THIS MISSION ON A 4-0 VOTE BUT REQUEST THAT THE AGENTS CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:_

 _This mission has been classified as LOW RISK, whilst the possibility of being exposed to violence and illegal drugs is considerably unlikely, the agents are to be reminded that they will be excluded from CHERUB immediately if they willingly use any drugs declared as Class A._

When he finally stopped reading and looked up again, he noticed Gennie Thomas watching them patiently from behind her desk. Alfie couldn't help but think Gennie reminded Alfie of Allison, she could be nice and kind but when you got on her nerves, all hell went down. She was around the age of her early thirties and looked very serious in her formal attire. "Do you both think you understand it all?" she inquired once she was sure she had both Alfie's and Karen's attentions full attention.

Karen nodded. "I have the objective of befriending Alfred's daughter Devona."

Gennie turned to him.

"Um," he quickly glanced his eyes over the briefing again. "I have to befriend Hayden Albach, so we can try and gather the necessary information to arrest Alfred."

Their mission controller looked pleased. "On your file it says you can speak almost fluent German, that'll be helpful when forming a friendship with Hayden – Alfie. And Karen, you've been learning the language since you were a red shirt – one of the reasons why I picked the pair of you for this task," she informed them. "Although both of them were born in the UK, Albach brought them up to learn both English and German."

"Will our name change?" Alfie asked.

"Your first names will remain the same, but both of your seconds names will be changed to Braun seeing as you'll be posing as my children."

"That's a German surname. Do you speak German too?"

"Not fluently," Gennie smiled and continued. "This mission shouldn't be taken anymore than a month. You'll be enrolled in the same school as Devona and Hayden so you'll have the chance of getting closer to the Albach family. Hopefully, in the end, you'll have access to their home and maybe even onto the man's computer."

"That shouldn't be too hard, I guess."

"So, I take it both of you agree to take the mission?"

"I would never say no to a mission," Karen nodded and then cocked her head to the side, patting Alfie on the back. "Guess I'll have to get used to having a little brother."

"And Alfie?"

"Of course I do," Alfie grinned. "I'd be a moron to not take it."

Gennie laughed and began piling up the files back up onto her desk. "I'm glad to hear that because I've scheduled for us to leave campus by one today so you've both only got around three hours to pack up and say goodbye to your friends. I'll meet you down at the entrance of the main building."

~oOo~

Alfie practically ran the way back to his room on the other side of campus, hardly believing his luck. His knowledge of German had gotten him this mission and he silently thanked his mum for the lessons when he was younger. He stepped out of the elevator with the intention of getting everything packed quickly so that he would have time to spare and say goodbye to his friends before he left for the month, only pausing when he spotted Harry leaning against the door.

The boy had a sombre expression on his face until he noticed Alfie and immediately brightened. "Hey, I was wondering as to where you'd got to."

Alfie smiled. "I was at the mission preparation building, I've got a mission."

He noticed that Harry's smile seemed to falter slightly before returning back to normal again. Alfie pretended he didn't notice and reached for his door. "That's great," Harry said cheerfully. "When you leaving?"

"Today, we're leaving at one but my mission controller said we won't be gone any longer than a month," Alfie told him. "I'll be seeing you again in no time. You can tell me how you're getting on with those punishments Allison dished out for you and Harriet."

"Don't remind me," Harry grumbled and then winced. "Look, I'm sorry we almost dragged you down with us dude and that I tried to punch you –"

"Honestly, its fine," Alfie waved him off with a laugh. "How's your hand?"

Harry lifted up his bandaged hand. "It's okay, it's what I deserve I guess," then he sighed. "But I feel so guilty. We could've prevented you from getting any missions."

"Well, you haven't because they just gave me one," Alfie placed a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Really, it's fine. You can help me pack if you want, probably not much fun though. I also need to remind myself to say goodbye to Grace, Harriet and Frankie."

Harry smiled and followed Alfie inside his room.


	26. GOODBYES

**26\. GOODBYES**

As he had originally expected, it didn't seem long until he had his bags packed and was bidding goodbye to all his friends'. Harriet pulled him into a bone crushing hug after he revealed the news. "You better come back in one piece," she said whilst Alfie struggled to breathe. "If I find out that you've gotten yourself hurt on this mission, I'll come and murder you for causing us so much worry."

"That's a comforting thought," Alfie scoffed, finally managing to peel himself away from the girl. "I'll be fine, stop being so dramatic."

Frankie giggled. "Dramatic is Harriet's middle name."

"Hmm," Alfie pondered. "Harriet Dramatic Ward – yeah, I guess it does have a nice ring to it."

Harriet shoved him backwards playfully. "Shut-up," she demanded. "Don't think I'm joking, I'll break out of campus to get to you if it comes to it."

"As if you haven't got enough punishments as it is," Frankie retorted, rolling her eyes.

Alfie winced at the memory of Allison handing out the harsh punishments to Harry and Harriet, the look on both of their faces once they realised that the next few months of their lives were probably going to be real-life hell. "How are you getting on with the punishments, by the way," he asked, whilst slinging his bag over his shoulder. "It must take you ages to clean up the mission control building everyday."

"It's pretty rough," Harriet admitted. "Especially when we have to try and cram in our homework but I guess we deserve it after what happened and we almost tried to murder each other."

"Neither of you have told me what this whole feud is about anyway," Alfie furrowed his eyebrows.

Frankie smirked as Harriet started to take a sudden interest in her shoes. "These dumbass twins here accidently started liking the same girl," she said. "They both had a massive fight over it but in the end, the girl went out with neither of them."

"Girl?" Alfie repeated, turning to Harriet.

"I don't like boys," she mumbled, almost looking as though she was embarrassed by her confession. "I never have, Harry never seemed to understand that."

Alfie wasn't particularly bothered by the fact that Harriet liked girls; his parents had always brought him up to believe that no matter who you are or who you liked, you were still human at the end of the day. He gave Harriet the same reaction he gave Hugo when he told Alfie he liked boys. "You're still Harriet to me," he smiled, patting the girl on the back. "And I'm sure your brother will come along eventually, just give him some time to think it through and if he still decides he doesn't like it – he's an arse, friend or no friend."

"Thanks," Harriet beamed. "Not many people know."

"Don't be afraid to tell anyone," Alfie said, reassuringly. "I'm sure loads of people will accept you and even if they don't, just block em' out – you don't need to waste your time with them."

"You know," Frankie said, leaning towards Harriet. "Sometimes I forget he's still eleven. I've met boys who are way older and they still act like they have the mental age of an eight-year-old."

~oOo~

After hugging the rest of all his friends, some of them hugging more than others, he left. He slung his bag over his shoulder and headed down towards the reception area of the main building. The elevator doors dinged opened and he was greeted to the same sight he had seen when he'd first arrived at CHERUB campus. Only this time, he knew where he was.

He spotted Karen Granger waiting with her luggage by the door and walked over. "How do you look so confident?" he asked.

She laughed and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You'll get used to the pre-mission nerves eventually," Karen told him. "When I got my first mission I wasn't able to sleep properly during the nights leading up to it. Then I realised I had no reason to be worried."

"Aren't you at least worried that you might mess up?"

Karen shook her head. "Just don't do anything that goes against what you've been trained," she grinned. "Then they don't have an excuse to kick you off campus."

"Of course," he mumbled. "No pressure there, then."

A few minutes later their mission controller walked through the doors of the main building and helped carry their bags to the car parked outside the front. Once they all managed to bundle as many bags as possible into the boot and the back seats, they were on the move. Alfie watched from the front passenger seat as they went passed the main campus gates and continued to do so as the campus faded into a small spec into the distance.

It was raining today, so Gennie had the windshield-wipers on full blast. They made a loud squeaking sound as they slid across the window.

Gennie's car was a black Kia Forte and it was big enough to carry both of their belongings with the furniture for the house already gone ahead in a moving van. "How long is the drive?" Alfie asked once they were a few miles away from CHERUB.

"Just over two hours I say, depends on traffic really," she replied, keeping her eyes on the road. "I left early to avoid rush hour but we'll see."

Karen leaned forwards in her seat to peer between them. "Should we use the weekend before school to explore the area?" she asked. "I looked it up and Southampton looks pretty big, we won't want to end up getting lost on our first day of school."

Their mission controller nodded. "That would be wise," Gennie nodded. "The more you know about the area, the easier the mission is likely to be."

Surprisingly there wasn't that much traffic during their journey. There weren't any major disruptions or accidents so all the way down the M4 and M3 were pretty clear. So clear in fact, that they were soon passing Camberley, Basingstoke and then Winchester in no time. During some of the journey, he looked at the new phone he'd been given specifically for the mission. It was an old Samsung phone and worked almost just as well as his iPhone that he was only allowed to use in order to contact his friends back at campus.

The Samsung had a SIM Card that didn't have many gigabytes, of course he understood why considering that this mission wasn't supposed to last very long and it was required that he dispose of the card once it ended. Contacting anyone he'd met from any of his missions would lead to expulsion and that was something he'd rather avoid.

After deciding that everything was in order, he slipped the phone into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out some earphones so he could listen to some music until they reached the outskirts of Southampton. From then onwards, Gennie used a GPS to navigate all the smaller roads of the city's suburbs before pulling into a little road where only six newish-looking detached houses sat. From what he knew, the place was called Sholing – a suburb close to the one where the Albachs' lived.

It was just reaching four in the afternoon as they began unloading the car and making themselves at home in their temporary house.

The house wasn't anything like the one he'd grown up in, but it was nice nonetheless. It had two floors, three bedrooms and one bathroom. As you walked into the entrance you were greeted by stairs situated directly in the middle of the room, dividing up the lounge and kitchen area.

"Whoa." Alfie commented and he heard Karen whistle approvingly behind him.

"Nice, right?" Gennie laughed, shuffling inside with some of the bags. "Don't you two get too comfortable here, we're only renting and if you do a good job, we'll be back at campus in no time."

"That's such a bummer," Alfie replied, stepping into the lounging area and looking into the large mirror hung over the mantelpiece. "I wouldn't mind living here."

"This is like the home I would like to have when I'm older," Karen noted. "Lots of room for a family."

"And a dog," Alfie added. "In fact, you could probably fit several dogs in here."

"Perhaps you two should be focusing on the present and start helping me with these bags," Gennie called out from behind them. "You've got a job to do and it's best if we centre on that for now."

"Right." Alfie nodded.

By the time they had their stuff unpacked and put away, with Karen claiming the largest room of the house, it was reaching half five and Alfie's stomach had begun to complain loudly. He had regrettably forgotten to have lunch and now it was paying him back for it. He left his bedroom, a square-shaped room with only a bed, a cupboard and a small television, and headed downstairs to see what the girls were doing.

He found Gennie and Karen sat at an island worktop in the kitchen, looking over several files. Gennie shot him a smile when she noticed him. "You got everything sorted?" she asked.

"All unpacked," he nodded and then gestured over to the files. "What were you talking about?"

"I was just informing Karen that once you've hopefully gathered the necessary amount of evidence, Hants Police should have a good enough reason to make the needed arrests and eventually send Alfred and his brother to jail," Gennie informed him. "The company will be seized, searched and eventually they've been up to will be put to a stop."

"Do the police know about me and Karen?" he asked. "About CHERUB?"

Gennie shook her head. "There's only once officer of the Hants Police that is currently in cahoots with us, but even he doesn't know the full existence of CHERUB. All we've informed them of is that a few people, not specifically children, is gathering the information needed to get the case going," she raised an eyebrow and looked over at him. "That reminds me; have you gone over all the profiles."

Alfie nodded. "Yep."

"Even yours?"

"My name is Alfie Braun. I have a German Dad but an English Mum and an older sister called Karen. After our parents divorced, we decided to move down to Southampton with our mum," he recalled. "Dad occasionally makes appearances but it's pretty rare. He was the one who taught me German whilst growing up."

Gennie nodded. "And Hayden?"

"Born in 2003, same age as me and is in Year Seven. English is his first language but he's learning German. He has an older sister called Devona."

Gennie beamed and Karen smiled. "Not bad, kid," she said. "You know for all those nerves, you seem to be starting off your first mission pretty well. Fingers crossed that it'll stay that way until the end."

"Right," Gennie clapped her hands, making them both jump as she got up from the stool. "You guys hungry?"

"Yes," Alfie nodded eagerly. "God, I thought you'd never ask."

She laughed. "I'll order pizza and then we can go over the files some more. I want to be sure you two know everything about the Albach family before you get to meet them."


End file.
